






7 - 

C0PVR1GHT DHPOSfT 























ZARAH THE CRUEL 













BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

Desert Love 
Leonie of the Jungle 
The Hawk of Egypt 





V 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


BY 

JOAN CONQUEST / 

AUTHOR OF “DESERT LOVE,” “lEONIE OF THE JUNGLE,” 
“THE HAWK OF EGYPT.” 



NEW YORK 

THE MACAULAY COMPANY 

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Copyright, 1923, by 
THE MACAULAY COMPANY 



Printed in the U. S. A. 

AUG 2 1 ’23 1 (J- 

©C1A752599 


TO 

BETTY C- OF C- 

TO WHOM I AM INDEBTED FOR 
SO MUCH OF THIS BOOK 




i 











ZARAH THE CRUEL 
















I 











ZARAH THE CRUEL 


PROLOGUE 

“Narrower than the ear of a needle ”— Arabic Proverb. 

The Holy Man, motionless, gaunt, his eyes filled with 
the peace of Allah, the one and only God, stood afar off, 
outlined against the moonlight, watching two horsemen 
fleeing for their lives across the desert. 

Pursued by a hand of Arabs w T hich hunted them for 
murder done in the far, fair City of Damascus and had 
hunted them throughout the Peninsula, they headed for 
the Mountains of Death towering in the limitless sands 
of the burning desert and cut off from the world by 
the silvery belt of quicksands which surround them 
completely. 

Uninhabited by beast or human being within the memory 
of man and the memory of his fathers, and his fathers’ 
fathers, yet did the wandering story-teller, as he flitted 
from town to village, from Bedouin camp to verdant oasis, 
make song or story of the legend which has clung to the 
pile of volcanic rock throughout the centuries. 

A story which either moved the listener to shouts of 
derisive, unbelieving laughter or held him still, lost in 
wonderment and dreams. 

A legend recounted in this day of grace by the Arabian 
story-teller to Bedouins, sitting entranced under the stars 
or the moon, yet which had been inscribed upon a highly 
decorated vellum by the Holy Palladius in the fifth cen¬ 
tury of our Lord, which record of early holy church 

9 


10 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


was lost in the burning and sacking of a famous library 
in the more Christian times of the last ten turbulent 
years. 

The story of a miraculous light, which, so read the 
vellum, led the Holy Fathers across the sands of death, 
over which they did most safely pass, to find within the 
mountains the further miracle of fresh, sparkling water, 
palm groves of luscious kholas dates, stretches of durra 
and grass, coarse enough to be woven into shirts, with 
which to replace, in the passing of the years, the shirts 
of hair which covered the attenuated bodies of the thirty- 
odd early Christian Fathers. 

There, within the secret oasis, so went the legend, the 
holy men who fled the temptations and persecutions of 
the world and sought safety and salvation in penance and 
pilgrimage, built a monastery to the glory of God, and 
there, so it was to be supposed, they must have died, 
with the exception of one, who, following the casting of 
lots, had been sent forth from the miraculous oasis upon a 
mission to acquaint the Holy Palladius of the community’s 
whereabouts. 

The vellum had witnessed the Holy Father’s safe ar¬ 
rival at his journey’s end, but of his return to the Sanctu¬ 
ary, as was the poetical name given the place by the re¬ 
nowned Palladius, there had been no mention. 

A fair legend to endure throughout the passing of the 
centuries, a sweet story in a land of thirst and death and 
dire privation, a tantalizing word-picture to those who 
knew the shifting sands to be impassable. 

The Holy Man pondered upon the legend as he watched 
the horsemen tearing towards the quicksands and certain 
death, then, with the beads of Mecca slipping between 
his fingers, turned and continued his pilgrimage due 
south, the south where the wind blows hottest and the 
sands bum the sandal from off even holy feet. 

And Mohammed-Abd, accused of the murder of a 
wealthy, flint-hearted usurer in the fair, far City of 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


11 


Damascus, turned to the handsome youth who, loving him 
as a brother, had helped him to escape, so far, from the 
vengeance of the flint-hearted usurer’s relatives. 

“The mare faileth, Boy of the Wondrous Eyes! I 
fear a spear or a bullet shall find its home in her body, 
or in mine, before she reaches yonder mass of rocks.” 

Yussuf laughed and turned in his seat and looked back, 
shading the beautiful, almond-shaped, long-lashed eyes 
which had earned him his nickname and had got him into 
more trouble even than usually befalls a handsome youth 
in the Arabian Peninsula. 

“There is the length of many spears yet between us, 
brother. Lie upon the neck of Lulah, the mare, so that 
the wind of her great speed be not counted against her. 
The swiftest mare in all Nejd, yet in endurance of but 
little count. Behold is there a light at the foot of the 
mountains moving this way and that way? Perchance ’tis 
one who lives amongst the rocks and who watches with 
intent to succour us. Allah be praised that the sands 
lie flat under our horses’ feet, though by the wool! would 
He be thrice praised if, in His mercy and compassion, He 
were to twist the feet of the horses which follow us and 
so break their riders’ necks.” 

The mountains seemed within spear-length, the quick¬ 
sands showed one with the desert, silvery, smooth, when 
the mare stumbled just as a bullet whistled past, singeing 
the streaming mane. 

She was up on her dainty, unshod feet upon the in¬ 
stant, racing for safety with the last effort of her gallant 
heart, when Mohammed-Abd turned and yelled defiance 
at his pursuers. 

“Ista’jil!” he yelled, “ Ista'jtt /” 

Everyday words, which merely mean “make haste,” 
but destined to become a battle cry which, in after years, 
struck terror in the hearts of those who heard it, from 
Oman to Hajaz. 

In reply came a volley of firing, mixed with derisive 


12 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


and insulting words, lost in the din of shouting and hoofs 
upon the sand. 

“Follow me, brother!” shouted Yussuf, as he pressed 
his mare with his knees. 

Ahead a greenish light danced this way and that, back¬ 
wards and forwards, and to it Yussuf rode his mare, with 
Mohammed-Abd close upon his heels. 

They followed the will-o’-the-wispish light formed by 
the gas floating above the quicksands, mixing with the 
wind when it blew from the south, and fled upon the nar¬ 
row path over which it danced. A path formed per¬ 
chance by the top of some mountain chain thrusting 
through the desert; hidden throughout the centuries 
by the inch or so, not more, of sand which overlapped 
it from the treacherous, seething, ever-moving sea of 
death; a way to safety discovered to the Holy Fathers 
and the fugitives before the law by Allah the merciful, 
the one and only God. 

Over it they passed safely, with, if they had but known 
it, barely the breadth of a hand to spare, upon either 
side of the exhausted mare; they slipped from the saddle 
and pulled the panting beasts back into the shadows just 
as, with much triumphant shouting and firing of rifles, 
the pursuing Arabs, riding in a straight line, plunged, 
yelling, screaming, down into the quicksands’ suffocating 
depths. 

The miracle of the fifth century had been explained 
at last. 

An hour later, when the stars shone down upon a scene 
of perfect peace, Yussuf laughed and pulled at the spear 
hurled by an Arab in one last effort of revenge before 
sinking to his death. 

It did not move. Stuck fast between two rocks it re¬ 
mained for all time, a sign to mark the commencement 
of the only means of communication between the Sanctu¬ 
ary and the pitiless, burning desert. 

“Methinks we are no better off, brother. If, by the 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


13 


grace of Allah, we find again the hidden path by which we 
crossed this sea of death, yet have we neither drop of 
water nor date-stone left with which to stifle the pangs of 
hunger and thirst, of which we surely die if we move 
not from this ledge of rock.” 

He looked up to the top width of a great V which 
cleft the mountains half-way down the side, and from the 
narrowest point of which there seemed to stretch a path 
to where the spear marked the beginning of the secret 
path. 

Then he stretched his hand and touched the rock be¬ 
hind the spear, and with finger upon cracked lips softly 
called Mohammed-Abd, who came quickly upon tiptoe. 

“Let us go warily, brother, yet let us go in search of 
those who inhabit the heart of the mountains, so that 
they help us in our need.” 

They passed their fingers over the rough cross hacked 
in the rock as a sign of his return by the Christian who, 
in the fifth century, had been sent upon a mission to the 
Holy Palladius; then, hobbling the mares, crept in the 
shadows from rock to rock, up the path leading to the 
narrowest point of the great cleft, which made the one 
opening in the mountains, slitting them to a spot mid¬ 
way between the foot and crest. 

Famished and almost crazed with thirst, the two men 
hid in blackest shadow, listening for a sound, peering 
for a sight of those who had marked the w T ay up with 
rough crosses cut upon the rocks; then, alert, appre¬ 
hensive, stopping to listen at every yard, crept noiselessly 
to the opening of the cleft. Through it they passed like 
shadows, and on down a steeper, broader path to a 
great plateau, on the edge of which they stopped, staring 
in amazement. 

“A mirage!” whispered Mohammed-Abd in hoarse tones, 
then, crouching, ran across the plateau and fell upon his 
knees and to his full length upon the bank of a sparkling, 
rushing river. 


14 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


Whence came the unknown, miraculous water? It 
flowed from the eastern side of the mountains; it twisted 
in the shape of a big S in the middle of the fertile plain; 
it disappeared through a narrow cleft in the western side 
with the thundering, rushing sound of water falling into 
space. 

The waters of the Wadi Hanifa which flow through 
Woshim and Ared more or less abundantly, according to 
the season, have so far not been traced after they dis¬ 
appear in the fertile district of Yemama. Do they flow 
below the surface to the Persian Gulf? or on into the 
terrible desert, to be absorbed in the ever greedy sand? 
Are these the waters which show above ground for a few 
blessed yards in the secret heart of the Mountains of 
Death, cut off by the quicksands from the needy sons 
of the desert who depend upon the scanty, brackish water 
of deep wells, and vapours carried uncertainly on cer¬ 
tain winds from the Persian Gulf, and which are lost 
once they pass above the hamads , those red-hot, dust¬ 
laden, scorching, terrible limestone plains? 

Or does a subterranean river flow through the bowels 
of some chain of mountains stretching below the surface 
of the Peninsula from sea to sea, wrapped in the desert 
sand ? 

Maybe! 

And may not the short mountain ranges dotted through¬ 
out Arabia’s deserts be the topmost peaks of that great 
hidden chain, and the miraculous waters hidden in the 
Mountains of Death be part of that lost river, escaping 
through its prison walls in the one spot where the rocks 
have been worn, during the centuries, by the rush and the 
fret of the waters below and the wind and the storm above? 

Fantastic theory. And yet who knows? Who will 
ever know? 

But there it is, and doubtlessly there it always will' 
be, forming an inaccessible oasis, with sweet water and 
groves of date palms, and stretches of wheat and barley 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


15 


descended from the grain sown from the Holy Fathers’ 
scanty store centuries ago; a quiet spot, with cotton 
shrubs and vines, coffee plants and durra, climbing gentle 
slopes covered in rich, coarse grass, and herbs and flowers 
of every kind which spring from the seeds blown upon 
the wind or carried by the birds which swarm where water 
is to be found. 

“No mirage, brother,” whispered Yussuf. “Yet must 
we go warily, with eyes in our heads and hands upon our 
weapons, for methinks the inhabitants hide and spy upon 
us from the rocks, waiting the fortunate moment to fall 
upon us.” 

He passed his hand over the first of a short flight of 
steps leading down to the water and worn smooth by the 
passage of holy feet. “By the marks upon the steps 
there is much going and coming, and a good harvest about 
us. Food for the eating and for the drinking, water, 
the beverage prescribed for man by Mohammed the 
prophet of Allah, the one and only God.” He touched the 
amulet of good luck which hung about his neck and lay 
quite still, his hand upon his friend’s arm, looking about 
him in the shadows and up at the birds of all sizes which, 
disturbed by the intrusion, flew distractedly in every direc¬ 
tion. “Stay thou here, brother. I will drink a while, 
then will I go and fetch thee dates, and if I meet the in¬ 
habitants of this corner of Paradise, set in the midst of 
suffering, will ask of them hospitality-Af they be friendly 
—or the way back across the hidden path by which we 
entered if they prove otherwise, quickening their tongues, 
if there be hesitation, with this.” 

He loosened the broad, crooked dagger in his cummer¬ 
bund, and, descending the rough steps, threw himself 
down to drink until he came wellnigh to bursting. Replete, 
he rose and walked apart some feet and looked around 
him and stood amazed, overcome by a strange awe, then, 
beckoning Mohammed-Abd who drank at the river’s edge, 
crept like a shadow across the plateau and up a steep 


16 ZARAH THE CRUEL 

flight of steps made by the laying of boulders one upon 
the other. 

The ruins of the monastery, which had been hidden 
from the fugitives by a great mass of jutting rock which 
swept down almost to the water’s edge, lay silent, for¬ 
saken, upon the natural terraces of the mountainside. 
In the strong black-and-white shadow and moonlight the 
rough walls showed no sign of the devastating hand of 
time, and hid the remains of roofs which, from want of 
repair, had at last caved in and fallen upon the rock 
floors. The windows of the cells, thirty in all, showed 
like black patches painted upon a grey background; thirty 
doorways gaped desolate; the dust of ages covered stones 
w r orn by the passing to and fro of bare feet, some more, 
some less, according to the span of years allotted to each 
holy man. 

How t had the holy men worked? How had they built 
to the glory of God with no other implements than their 
hands and the strength of their muscles and their vows? 

The walls of the cells, the chapel and the refectory 
were two feet thick and built of pieces of granite of vari¬ 
ous sizes, fitted together in rough, mosaic fashion; they 
had stood throughout the centuries just as they had been 
put together, without loss of a single stone, just as the 
trunks of palms, rough-hewn by patience and sharpened 
stones, had stood, in ones or in columns, to support the 
roofs composed of other trunks of palms, laid crosswise 
and covered in laced leaves. 

Later was discovered a place, high upon the mountain¬ 
side, to the edge of which boulders, both great and small, 
had evidently been pushed and hurled to the rocks below, 
to be smashed to bits, out of which bits doubtlessly had 
been picked the pieces necessary to the task of building. 

How many years had it taken to build the chapel? 
How much strength to carry the square slab, which had 
formed the altar, up the mountainside and to prop it 
upon four supports? How much patience to build up 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


17 


the pointed facade and to pluck out the stones from the 
middle until a clear cross, formed by space, showed against 
the blazing sky or the star-studded velvet of the night? 

Why had they built? For joy? For penance? The 
latter probably, for the buildings, which spread terrace 
above terrace, must have far outreached the need of the 
holy men. 

For many minutes Yussuf stood staring up at this 
mystery of the desert, and then, slowly, step by step, 
pulled by the strength of the unknown, halting to listen, 
hastening to gain the shadows, climbed the rough steps 
and reached the chapel door. 

He stood staring down at the floor littered with stones 
and across to the altar, before which lay a skull, gleam¬ 
ing in a shaft of moonlight. Making the sign to scare 
away evil spirits, he stepped across the holy place, though 
not for a king’s ransom would he have touched the white 
bones of Father Augustine, the last of the holy men, who 
had laid himself down to die before the altar, upon which 
had been roughly chipped a cross. 

“Christians!” whispered Yussuf, slipping the rosary 
of Mecca between his fingers. “Infidels!” 

Like a great cat he crept out of the place and up the 
steps leading to the thirty cells, where, upon the stone 
floors, showed the marks made by the holy men who had 
fled the world and the luxury of soft beds. He climbed 
yet twelve steps more to the refectory, where thirty 
stones, more or less flat, stood in the circle the holy men 
" had formed for meals or recreation; and up again to 
other buildings, both great and small, built to what pur¬ 
pose it will never be known; then fled the silent, deserted 
place, slipping, stumbling down the steps to the plateau, 
where waited his friend. 

Side by side, warily, noiselessly, they climbed to the 
tombs, high up upon the western flank, natural caves, 
upon the floors of which twenty-nine holy men slept the 
long sleep, each underneath a mound of stone. 


18 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


They lay there now, for all that is known, waiting for 
the last trump to call them back across the quicksands 
of time. 

They sleep peacefully, undisturbed, for ruthless, savage 
as were the men who ultimately threw in their lot with 
Mohammed-Abd, criminals and outlaws every one, from 
every province and every tribe in the Peninsula, yet they 
respected the solemnity of that Christian burial ground 
and left the sleeping forms in peace. 

And just as the first sunbeam slid over the mountain- 
tops, filling the rocky bowl with golden light, the two 
men adopted the place as home. 

An impregnable stronghold; a natural fortress in a 
waste place; a land of dates and water, upon which a 
man or many men could subsist for lack of better or more 
tasty nutriment; a citadel surrounded by a sea of death, 
yet connected with terra firma by a path of rock, which 
as a foundation cannot be bettered. 

“. . . for if we have safely followed in the path of 
the thirty who sleep yonder,” argued Mohammed-Abd, 
looking up to the tombs in the rocks bathed in the glory 
of the sunrise; “why should not yet another thirty, flee¬ 
ing before the law, and even thrice times thirty, come 
safely through the hungry sands? If two horses escaped 
the death, why should not two camels, with their feet as 
big and soft as the heart of one who leans unduly to the 
affections, cross that path, and, with violent lamenta¬ 
tions and much urging, make their way down yon rocky 
road? And if two, why should not thirty of their 
brothers and sisters follow as safely, with thirty Nejdeen 
stallions and mares, as nimble as goats upon their dainty 
feet, behind them? And are we so weak that we could 
not carry sheep and goats, in young, across our saddle 
bows, so that they multiply in this place of plenty?” 
He looked up and around, stretching wide his arms. 
“Is there not place for man and beast and many of 
each? And are we not, O my brother, bidden by the 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 19 

Great Prophet to succour those in distress, are we 
not?” 

In such-wise did Mohammed-Abd, the ambitious out¬ 
law, with Yussuf as his right hand, become the head of 
as daring a gang of brigands as had ever swept the high¬ 
ways of the desert. 

And all went well with him, his harvests yielding abun¬ 
dantly, his wealth accumulating, his people and cattle wax¬ 
ing fat and multiplying throughout the years, until he 
took unto himself a wife, who died on bearing him a 
daughter. 


CHAPTER I 


“From the afternoon it will appear if the night will he clear ” 

—Arabic Proverb. 

Zarah the Cruel leaned on the wall which surrounded 
the chapel of the monastery, built by early Christians in 
the fifth century, and looked down at two dogs fighting 
upon the plateau near the water’s edge. 

Twenty years had passed since Sheikh Mohammed- 
Abd, so called by his men, who adored him, had adopted 
the natural stronghold in a desert waste as home, naming 
it the Sanctuary, unwitting that he poached upon the 
poetical tendencies of the long dead Holy Palladius; 
fifteen years since he had taken to wife Mercedes, the 
beautiful Spaniard, the arrogant daughter of an im¬ 
poverished Spanish grandee, who, made prisoner as she 
journej^ed on business bent across the Arabian Peninsula 
in the company of her high-born and feckless father, had 
condescended to marry the notorious robber-sheikh in 
exchange for the liberty of her progenitor and the safe 
conduct of himself and his retinue out of the country. 
She had condescended to marry him, but in the secret 
places of her passionate, adventurous heart she had come 
most truly to love him, so that the years preceding the 
birth of their daughter had been years of happiness; 
years in which, although the raids upon caravans and 
peoples had been as fierce and bloody as before, the lot 
of the prisoners had been considerably lightened, until 
those who had not the wherewithal to pay the ransom 
demanded had come to sing as they set about their tasks 
of herding cattle, tending harvests, or working to 
strengthen and beautify the ruins upon the mountain- 

20 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


21 


side. Those who had the means, or friends altruistic 
enough to raise the ransom, had paid it and taken their 
departure with a distinct feeling of regret in their 
hearts. 

Many had thrown in their lot with the outlawed chief, 
whilst the physically undesirable had been liberated at 
once and sent packing on the homeward track, so that 
harmony had reigned in the strange place and the welfare 
of the brotherhood had increased a hundredfold. 

Three years later Mercedes died, leaving in her stead 
a woman-child, upon whom the Sheikh poured out the 
adoration of his stricken heart. A strange, quiet woman- 
child, who had neither cried nor laughed as she had lain 
in her father’s arms, staring past him out of tawny, 
opalescent eyes. 

And as she grew, beautiful, cruel, and as relentless as 
the desert to which she belonged, so did unrest and fear 
and passion grow in the erstwhile happy community, until 
women ran and seized their children so that her shadow 
should not fall upon them, prisoners shrank at sight or 
sound of her, and the men, hating her in their hearts 
yet hypnotized by her beauty and her great daring, 
whispered amongst themselves as they questioned the one, 
the other, as to the next whim or new punishment her un¬ 
governable temperament would invent. 

For an Arabian she was well educated. Vain as a pea¬ 
cock, she forced herself, loathing it the while, to take 
advantage of every opportunity of learning which pre¬ 
sented itself, solely with the object of shining before the 
men, who, with, the exception of one nicknamed the 
Patriarch, were as illiterate as most Arabs are. 

A learned Armenian, a Spaniard and a Frenchman, 
made prisoners through an injudicious display of wealth, 
had each had the sentence of heavy ransom commuted to 
that of two years’ instruction to the Sheikh’s almost un¬ 
governable daughter. 

The Jew had taught her to read and to write whilst 


22 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


thoroughly appreciating his robber-host’s hearty hospi¬ 
tality ; the Spaniard had taught her his language and the 
dances of his country whilst enjoying the wild life he had 
led between lessons; the Frenchman had taught her his 
language and the use of the foils, and had asked for her 
hand in marriage, to be thoroughly surprised at a blunt 
refusal. 

She read everything she could get hold of, lining the 
reconstructed walls of two cells, which had once echoed 
the prayers and witnessed the austerities of the holy 
monks, with books brought by caravan from the port of 
Jiddah. She could eat quite nicely with a knife and fork 
and manipulate a finger napkin with some dexterity, but 
showed a preference for her fingers—which she wiped upon 
the carpet or by digging them into the hot sand—and her 
splendid white teeth for the process of separating meat 
from bone. 

From her father she undoubtedly came by her magnifi¬ 
cent horsemanship and surpassing skill in the use of 
weapons of self-defence. 

He delighted in her physical training, spending hours 
with her either in a room which had been fitted up as a 
gymnasium after the counselling of the Frenchman; or 
on the plateau, pitting her skill with spear, rifle and re¬ 
volver against that of_ youths of her own age; or away 
in the desert riding with the magnificent horses for which 
he had become famous throughout the Peninsula. 

Trained to a hair, with a ripple of muscle under the 
velvety, creamy skin which the sun barely bronzed, she 
could, at last, throw an unbroken horse w r ith any of her 
father’s followers, or ride it bareback out into the mystery 
of the terrible desert, heedless of its efforts to dismount 
her, driving it farther and farther with little golden spurs 
until, with its pride shattered and its heart almost broken, 
she would race it back, utterly spent, to the shade of the 
mountains. 

She joined the enthusiastic men in the sports they got 


23 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

up amongst themselves to pass the monotony of leisure 
hours, or hunted with them for the sheer joy of killing, 
laughing with delight when she brought down ostrich or 
gazelle, firing at carrion for the sole purpose of keeping 
her hand in, leaving the birds to die where they fell. 

Born and bred in the heat of the tropics, which hastens 
the physical development of both sexes in the Eastern 
races, she was almost full grown upon her twelfth birth¬ 
day. She inherited the beauty of her mother, save for 
the colour of her hair, which rioted over her head in short 
curls and flamed like the setting sun, and the colour 
of her eyes, which shone like a topaz in the moonlight or 
as the storm-w r hipped desert, according to the violence 
or moderation of her mood. Through the Andalusian 
strain in her mixed blood she had come by her perfect 
hands and feet and teeth, and to the same source was she 
a thousand times indebted for the grace of her movements 
and gait and the assurance of her pose. 

Her father’s tenacity was abnormally developed in 
her. It had helped him to cling to life in the first turbu¬ 
lent years in the desolate Sanctuary; it helped her to 
beat down his almost indomitable will over matters both 
great and small, until, save for an occasional outburst of 
authorit} r , he w r as as wax in her slender hands. Of his 
great-heartedness, his charity tow r ards the needy—for 
whom he so often robbed the wealthy, with much violence 
and bloodshed—his justice and understanding, she had 
not one particle in her heart of stone, as she had not a 
glimmer of the humour and tenderness which had served 
to balance her mother’s arrogance and passionate nature. 

In her, the crossing of the races, exaggerating the de¬ 
fects, minimizing the merits of her parentage, had re¬ 
sulted in a terrible streak of cruelty which roused a fierce 
hatred in heart of man and beast. 

Virile, ambitious, relentless, she was cursed from birth 
by the strength of her dual nationality. 

Driven, beaten, horses did her bidding, but had never 



24 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


been known to answer to her call; dogs hated her in¬ 
stinctively, but feared her not one bit; her arm still 
showed, would always show, the marks of Radi’s teeth 
when, from an incredible distance, the greyhound bitch 
leapt upon her to revenge the death, by drowning, of one 
pup which had angered the girl by its continual whimper¬ 
ing. For her life she dared not visit the kennels unat¬ 
tended. 

She had tried, but had failed to bring about the fall of 
Yussuf of the Wondrous Eyes, who loved the Sheikh as 
a brother, and would have laid down his life for him if 
he had so desired. 

She hated him for his beauty, for his indifference to¬ 
wards her, for the love he inspired in animals—Radi, the 
famous greyhound; Lulah, the fastest mare; Fahm, the 
priceless dromedary, were all his. 

Allah! how she hated him! 

He responded to her hate with a hate transcending 
that of his own dog, the maddened bitch; he had hated 
her blindly from the very beginning—for causing the 
death of the woman who had brought such happiness to 
his friend; for usurping her place and his place in the 
Sheikh’s heart; for her cruelty, her tyranny, her utter 
disregard of the happiness and welfare of others. 

He set himself to thwart the child in every possible way 
and upon every possible occasion—craftily, so that none 
should point to him as the author of the contretemps 
which so strangely and so frequently befell her. 

From the day she could understand until the dawn of 
her tenth birthday misfortune after misfortune fell upon 
her, until those who met her, covertly made the gesture, 
used all the world over, to avert the evil eye; whilst the 
Sheikh tore his beard in secret as he tried to elucidate the 
mysteries of the dead mare, the broken spears, the dis¬ 
appearance, almost within sight of the Sanctuary, of an 
entire caravan laden with gifts for her, and other calami¬ 
ties which had befallen his offspring, in whom, blinded as 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 25 

unfortunately are so many doting parents, he saw no 
fault. 

But when the sun rose on the anniversary of Zarah’s 
tenth year of life, Yussuf’s hate, as is the wont of un¬ 
bridled passions, turned back upon him, whilst tragedy 
followed close upon his heel as he wended his way to the 
Hall of Judgment by one of the many paths he had made, 
in his love of solitude, amongst the rocks. Mohammed- 
Abd looked up at the handsome face and smiled into the 
wondrous eyes which looked down into his in such splendid 
friendliness and bade him sit beside him on the carpet, 
upon which were spread gifts of gold and silver, ivory and 
glass and silk, to celebrate the festival. 

“Zarah would ride thy mare Lulah in the gazw this 
night, little brother. Behold would she be well mounted 
when gaining the title of Hadeeyah by leading the men 
to the attack, even as did Ayesha, the wife of Mohammed, 
the Prophet of Allah, the one and only God.” 

“She would ride Lulah P” replied Yussuf slowly, ignor¬ 
ing the girl entirely, intentionally, so as to rouse her 
anger. “Lulah, descendant of the mare that brought 
thee safely across the path so many moons ago?” 

As it happened, Zarah did not mind if she rode mare 
or stallion in her first raid upon a caravan which had been 
reported as travelling, heavily laden, towards Hutah. 

Foiled, up to that very moment, in all her efforts to 
break or bend the man she hated with all her heart, she 
was making one last effort to triumph over him. 

Incapable of understanding the friendship between the 
men, under-estimating Yussuf’s strength of character, be¬ 
lieving, in her colossal vanity, that he was merely the 
victim of a petty jealousy roused by her beauty and her 
power over the Sheikh, she had decided to make her 
request before her father upon a day when, so she thought, 
no one would dare refuse her anything. 

“Yea! little brother,” replied Mohammed-Abd, “the 
fastest mare in all Arabia!” 


26 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


Knowing nothing whatever about fortune telling, and 
merely to plague the girl, Yussuf, slowly and with an 
irritating nonchalance, drew certain signs upon the floor, 
then spoke, as Fate, who held the strings by which they 
were hobbled to their destinies, dictated. 

“I see Lulah flying across the desert sands,” he 
whispered, “at dawn, with death upon her back. She 
flees for her life, with hate, revenge, hard upon her heels. 
She stumbles, there is . . . nay! I see no more. ’Tis 
hidden in the mists of time. But death, death with a 
crown of red above her snow-white face, rode her, with 
hate upon her heels.” 

He looked across at Zarah, who, ridden with super¬ 
stition, and totally unaware that he was fooling her, 
leant far back upon her cushions, one hand extended, 
with fingers spread against disaster, the other clutching 
an amulet of good luck hanging about her neck. 

He smiled at her terror and shrugged his shoulders, 
spreading his hands, palm uppermost, as though to pro¬ 
test against such signs of weakness. The action, the look 
in the wonderful eyes, acted as a spur upon the girl, 
goading her to maddest wrath. With a mighty effort she 
controlled herself and leaned far forward, eyes blazing, 
her lips drawn back in a snarl of hate. 

“What has death to do with me?” she cried. “Verily 
dost thou croak like a bird of prey. I say that I will ride 
Lulah, the black mare, thy mare, as far as anything in 
the Sanctuary can be thine, who art but a servant. Hear- 
est thou? I ride Lulah, the black mare!” 

“Behold! have I ears to hear thy words, and eyes to 
see thy face distorted in anger! Yet I say that thou 
shalt not ride the mare.” 

The men who sat in the body of the hall smoking or 
drinking coffee whilst listening to the dispute, nudged each 
other at the sudden, tense silence which fell between the 
two. 

“A golden piece, Bowlegs, to the dagger in thy belt 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


27 

that trouble befalls before the coffee grows cold within 
the cups,” whispered the Patriarch, whose benign ex¬ 
terior covered a heart given entirely to gambling. 

Bowlegs, who had gained his unpoetical sobriquet on 
account of his lower limbs, which had become almost cir¬ 
cular through his infantile desire to run before he could 
crawl, laid his dagger on the carpet beside the golden piece. 

“Nay! Not to-day. Fall the trouble will between the 
two w T ho love each other as love the cat and dog, but not 
upon the tiger-cub’s day of festival—hist—she speaks.” 

“And why shall I not ride the black mare?” 

Zarah spoke slowly, clearly, whilst the Sheikh looked 
from the one to the other in grief and anxiety. 

“Because she is in foal!” 

It was a lie, the girl knew it was a lie, the Sheikh knew 
it was a lie, as he leaned forward and tried to catch her 
hand. 

He was too late. 

“Liar!” she screamed. “Accursed liar!” she screamed 
again, as she seized a heavy, cut-glass bowl and hurled it 
in Yussuf’s face, against which it smashed to pieces, cut¬ 
ting it to ribbons, a thousand needle-pointed splinters 
of glass putting out for ever the light of the wondrous 
eyes. 

* * * & 

“The hox went in search of the lid until it met with it” 

—Arabic Proverb. 

The mistaken love of friends saved him, though would 
it have been far kinder to have let him close his blinded 
eyes in the last long sleep, from which he would perchance 
have wakened with a clearer vision and a better under¬ 
standing. 

“The will of Allah? Does our brother live or die? 
Speak quickly lest I pinch thy windpipe ’twixt thumb and 
finger.” 

Some many days later the renowned herbalist pro- 



28 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


cured from Hutah, in the Hareek Oasis, by the simple 
process of kidnapping, and brought, blindfolded, by 
swiftest camel to the curing of the sick man, looked up 
at Al-Asad, the gigantic Nubian. 

“He lives,” replied the wizened old man, gently re¬ 
moving the Nubian’s slender fingers from about his scraggy 
throat. “But would have died long ere my advent if 
it had not been for the tender ministrations of yon woman 
Namlah and her son, smitten with dumbness.” 

Al-Asad nodded as he looked to where Namlah, the 
busy, who had tended the sick man day and night, stretched 
out pieces of soft white muslin to dry, with the help of 
her son. 

“Aye, verily has she a heart made for mothering. Two 
apples has she, one for each eye. Two sons, though which 
one she loves the most we do not know. The one who is 
gifted with speech and is slow of wit, or the dumb one 
with a mind like yonder sparkling water? Hey! Namlah! 
thou busy ant, wilt give thy boy to the herbalist so that he 
acquires much learning in medicine?” 

Namlah clutched her dumb boy to her heart. 

“I will kill him, or her, who takes one of mine from 
me!” she shrilled, taking off the amulet of good luck from 
about her own neck to hang it round her son’s. “The 
jewels, the fair name, yea! even the eyes canst thou take 
from a woman, but her manchild, never!” 

She spat in the direction of the dwelling where slept 
the girl upon whom she waited sometimes as bodywoman, 
whereupon the Nubian laughed good-naturedly, bidding 
her keep a hold upon her tongue. 

“Yea! but verily,” said the unsuspecting herbalist, 
“does the Sheikh’s daughter need a whip across her 
shoulders.” 

“And thou thy tongue pulled forth by the roots!” 

Al-Asad, who loved the Sheikh’s daughter with all the 
strength of his fierce nature, made an ineffectual grab 
at the terrified old man as he shot like a rabbit down the 


29 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

rocky path; then laughed and looked up to where the 
girl slept, and fell a-dreaming of the day when, now that 
Yussuf was out of the running, he might perchance, by 
right of force, step into the Sheikh’s shoes upon his death, 
to rule the leaderless men and to wed the fatherless 
daughter. 

The wounds healed, the fever abated, yet for many 
days, feigning weakness, tended by the dumb youth whom 
he christened “His Eyes,” Yussuf lay planning revenge 
for his loss of sight. 

Distraught with pain, unable to control his thoughts 
in the agony of his wounds, he finally decided to leave 
it to time, which did not mean that he murmured Kismet in 
the quiet watches of the everlasting night which had fallen 
upon him. 

The Oriental submits uncomplainingly to sickness, mis¬ 
fortune and death, but he sees to it that his revenge is 
of his own fashioning and one that will, if possible, de¬ 
scend unto the furthest generation. 

He left his sick bed a seemingly humble, repentant, and 
forgiving soul, blaming himself for the disaster and prom¬ 
ising to make amends for past misdemeanour—seemingly; 
for not for one single moment of the dreary days and 
pain-filled, sleepless nights did the thought of revenge 
leave his tortured mind. Bereft of the joys of hunting 
and the daily thrills which make part of a marauder’s 
life, he wandered by day, ever guarded by “His Eyes,” 
around and about the buildings of the monastery and over 
- the rocks amongst which they had been built; at night he 
lay, until the coming of the dawn he could not see, think¬ 
ing, planning, discarding, to think and plan again. 

The second sight of the blind, through touch and 
auditory nerve, came to him swiftly, until, at length, sure¬ 
footed as a goat, he passed where no other would have 
dared to place a foot; of a truth, there did not seem to 
be rock, or precipice, or height round, through, or over, 
which he could not lead one safely; nor human whom he 


30 


ZAHAR THE CRUEL 


could not designate by the sound of his, or her, footfall 
on sand or rock. 

It approached the uncanny even in the blind, bringing 
with it a certain respect from others, who, thinking him 
possessed of a djinn or evil spirit of the desert, left him 
alone, with the exception of Mohammed-Abd and the 
half-caste Nubian, who loved him only one whit less than 
they loved the girl who had blinded him. 

Refusing all aid, even that of “His Eyes,” he passed 
days in discovering and establishing the exact position 
of the narrow path which stretched through the quick¬ 
sands up to the foot of the mountain. Day after day, 
night after night, in the cool of sunrise or sunset, in the 
peace of star or moonlight, or in the noonday heat, he 
followed the edge of the quicksands upon his knees, feeling 
and digging, until one noon his slender fingers found that 
for which they searched. He turned his face to the sun, 
and, sure-footed as a goat, picked his way, step by step, 
backwards, feeling, feeling with his toes, across the quak¬ 
ing bog to the spear stuck fast between two rocks. 

There he passed the blazing hours, registering the loca¬ 
tion of the path by the lay of the sun upon the rocks and 
his mutilated face; and never once, afterwards, did he 
fail by day to find his way, unaided, either going out or 
coming in, across the narrow way. 

He crossed to the desert at night upon the back of 
either one or the other of the two animals he loved to 
ride, and which, with the help of “His Eyes” and much 
patience, he trained to negotiate the path without fear 
and without help of guiding hand or knee. 

During the training, Lulah, spoilt and sensitive, had 
wellnigh lost her life more times than could be numbered; 
whereas Fahm, the black dromedary, ambled indifferently 
across the dangerous path as though its great, cushioned 
feet trod the desert sands. 

A magnificent beast, this black Jiejeen of Oman. 

Brainless as a sheep, swift as the wind, as enduring 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


31 


as it was obstinate, it was worth the price of many blood- 
red rubies on account of its colour, and had fallen to 
Yussuf as his share of the spoil resultant upon a sanguin¬ 
ary and none too successful attack upon a caravan of 
camels belonging to the great Sheikh Hahmed, the Camel 
King. 

And with it all he waited, patiently and with the Ori¬ 
ental’s fatalism, throughout the years, for his revenge 
upon Zarah the Arabian. 

Subtle, crafty, determined that by his hand alone 
should punishment fall upon her, he had argued with 
and beseeched the Sheikh and his fellow-men to spare 
her. Even upon the night of the disaster had he 
whispered, between the cut lips held together by the 
hour in Namlah’s tender fingers—had whispered in ur¬ 
gent entreaty, until the men, crowding about his couch, 
thinking him crazed with fever, touched their foreheads 
as they looked at each other and made oath upon the 
beard of the Prophet to do so. 

They had thought him crazed with fever then, there¬ 
after they ever thought him slightly mad. 

They would touch their foreheads when he spoke gently 
of the girl, and would shake their heads when he ques¬ 
tioned them closely about the suitors who, afire with the 
tales of her beauty and her wealth, came themselves or 
sent emissaries laden with gifts, piled high on camel back, 
to ask her hand in marriage. 

They thought him slightly mad, whereas, if they could 
but have seen into his sane and cunning mind, they would 
have understood that his interest in the girl’s marriage 
had root in a great fear that he would so be cheated 
of his revenge. 

But Zarah, exceeding proud of the European blood in 
her veins, had no wish to wed at an age when European 
girls were still at school, neither had she the slightest in¬ 
tention of becoming one of the four wives which Moham¬ 
med the Prophet in his wisdom, knowing the weakness of 


32 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


character and want of self-control in man, allotted unto 
the male sex. So that Yussuf sighed in relief as each 
suitor, blindfolded, was led back across the path by which, 
blindfolded, he had come, and, laden with gifts, set upon 
the homeward track. 

Actively, he knew he could do nothing in revenge until 
Fate whispered in his ear, but in a hundred ways, a 
hundred times a day, he made the girl’s life a burden to 
her. 

He refused to cover his face, which was no fit sight 
for man or woman, and took to haunting her, craftily 
withal, so that it seemed that by mere chance his shadow 
fell so often upon the path she trod. 

She had no escape from him. 

If she passed in a crowd he picked out her footfall; 
when the place was full of the sound of the neighing of 
horses and the barking of dogs, he could hear her coming, 
and, quick and silent as a beast of prey, sliding, slip¬ 
ping, holding by his hands, would reach the spot where, 
knowing the turns and twists of every path, he knew 
that she must pass; he would stand or sit without move¬ 
ment, staring at her out of sightless orbits, whilst she, 
believing him ignorant of her presence, would pass swiftly, 
silently, with averted head and fingers spread against 
misfortune. 

He stood close behind her in the shadows, wrapped 
in the Bedouin cloak, as she leaned on the wall watching 
the fight between the dogs, one of which had been accepted 
as a gift by the rejected suitor who, at that moment, 
made his adieux to the Sheikh in the Hall of Judgment. 

In the depths of the girl’s startling eyes shone a merci¬ 
less light; an amused smile curved the beautiful, scarlet 
mouth; she clapped her hands covered in jewels, and, 
jogged by Fate, laughed aloud at the despair of the groom 
who had allowed the dogs to escape from the kennels. 

Jaw locked in jaw, bleeding, exhausted, the dogs were 
fighting to the death, but they sprang apart when the 


r 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 33 

sound of the girl’s laughter was brought to them on the 
evening breeze and crouched, glaring upwards, ruffs on 
end, growling, the anger of the moment forgotten in their 
hatred of the woman. 

Furious at the dogs’ display of hatred in front of the 
attendant, consumed with a desire to punish them; Zarah 
turned to run up the steps leading to the Hall of Judg¬ 
ment where were stacked the weapons of defence. 

“Thy spear!” she shouted to a youth who came towards 
her from the men’s quarters. 

She seized it from him and leapt upon the wall, stand¬ 
ing straight and beautiful, her white draperies blown 
against her by the evening breeze. She paid no attention 
to the shouting of the groom; instead, she took careful 
aim and laughed as the spear, flashing like silver in the 
sun rays, sped downwards and buried itself in the flank 
of the greyhound which had been accepted as a gift by 
her father’s guest. 

Her vanity appeased, she turned away, neither did 
she look back as she mounted the steps to her own dwelling. 

Had she but glanced over her shoulder she might have 
taken a warning from the terrible look of satisfaction 
on blind Yussuf’s face. 

“ ‘The little bird preens the breast, while the sports¬ 
man sets his net.’ ” He laughed to himself as he muttered 
✓ the proverb, and passed on into the shadows and out 
of sight. 


CHAPTER II 


“If thou wert to see my luck, thou wouldst trample it under¬ 
foot — Arabic Proverb. 

Insolently indifferent Zarah stood, some hours later, 
in the Hall of Judgment waiting for the verdict to be 
passed. 

In outraging her father’s hospitality by killing the dog 
accepted as a gift by the guest beneath his roof, she had 
committed the one sin unforgivable to the Arab. 

The hospitality of the Arab to-day is as great and 
as genuine as in the days of Ishmael and Joktan—of 
either the one or the other he is supposed to be the direct 
descendant. 

Three days is the prescribed limit to the Arab’s bounte¬ 
ousness on behalf of the stranger within the gates, though, 
if the guest’s company prove agreeable it will doubtlessly 
be offered for a period extending over weeks, or months, 
or even years. In any case, however, the three days’ limit 
is never strictly adhered to, even if there be but little 
sympathy between host and guest, and once the latter 
has eaten an Arab’s salt he can count himself as abso¬ 
lutely safe for roof and sustenance, until courtesy or 
necessity bids him to move on. The Arab may hate the 
very sight of his guest and loathe his habits and disagree 
entirely with his views on life, but, whilst aching to see 
his back, will patiently bear with him and offer him of 
his best; he may be longing to know whence his guest 
came and whither he goes, but not a question will he ask if 
the stranger should not see fit to enlighten him as to his 
movements; and a traveller can most assuredly feel at 
ease about his precious life and belongings as long as 
he is under an Arab’s roof—as guest. 

34 



ZARAH THE CRUEL 


35 


An Arab will give his life for you if you have broken 
bread with him, and under the same conditions he will 
not touch a button or a biscuit belonging to you, even 
though he may be wellnigh starving and dressed in rags 
himself. 

The Emeer, or ruler, of one of the Wahhabee provinces 
had come in person, though secretly, to ask for the hand 
of the girl, the fame of whose beauty had been spread 
throughout the Peninsula by prisoners who had worked 
or paid their way back to freedom. He had not come 
straightforwardly, because, even in Arabia, the powers 
that be, however insignificant, do not openly deal with 
outlaws. His offer to include Zarah amongst his wives 
and to give her all that she might wish for—within rea¬ 
son—had been refused, not because he already had three 
wives and various lesser lights of the harem, who were 
known to fight between themselves like cats, or because he 
was of middle age and inclined to rotundity, but just be¬ 
cause Zarah already had everything she could wish for, 
within reason and without, and had no intention of marry¬ 
ing without love. 

He had proffered his gifts and had accepted his host’s 
in return, and his eyes had glistened at the sight of the 
slender beauty of the greyhound which, wdthin an hour 
of his departure, had been killed by his host’s 
daughter. 

The Sheikh had many greyhounds; in fact, a pair had 
been substituted for the one killed, but that was not 
the point; the dead dog having been accepted had be¬ 
come the guest’s property, therefore it had also become 
sacred in the eyes of the host and the host’s family and 
servants. 

The severest sentence, ofttimes that of death, is passed 
upon those who break the Arab’s law of hospitality, so 
that Zarah stood, beautiful, insolent, alone, in the Hall 
of Judgment waiting to hear what punishment the two, 
so deeply w r ounded in their pride, would mete out to her. 


36 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


And as she stood, knowing the power of her beauty, 
therefore fearing naught, she looked indolently round the 
room, once a monk’s refectory, and thought in her greedy 
heart of how it would be decorated to enhance her power 
when once she reigned supreme. 

The Sheikh’s taste was rather primitive and inclined 
more to the useful than to the ornamental. Prisoners 
had worked upon the rock floor until the surface had been 
made smooth, and upon it had been thrown skins of the 
small, ferocious tiger, the panther, the Nejd wolf, and 
other wild beasts of the Peninsula, with rugs woven from 
camel’s hair, patterned in different colours. 

Great brass bowls, full of water, stood upon the thirty 
stools of stone, once used by the holy men as seats, now 
ranged against the walls upon which hung weapons of 
every sort, calibre and age, either honestly bought in 
towns or lifted in a raid. Lances or throwing spears, 
heavy and light, swords, knives, daggers ornamented with 
every conceivable device, and firearms of most genuine 
antiquity, even match-lock or flint-guns, which, however, 
should not be treated with contempt when in the hands 
of the Bedouin. He is a splendid marksman, no matter 
what the age of the weapon he may handle. 

The Sheikh and his men were magnificently armed, 
wealth and craft having procured them their hearts’ de¬ 
light in the shape of the most up-to-date rifles and re¬ 
volvers, which they loved a good deal more than their 
wives and almost as much as their sons. 

The two men sat on cushions upon a dais at the end 
of the hall, the guest, in the place of honour upon the 
Sheikh’s left hand, looking down, perplexed, uneasy, at 
the beautiful girl who stood so superbly indifferent just 
below them. 

She had dressed for the occasion. 

A Banian or Indian merchant, taken prisoner one time, 
had introduced and taught the men’s wives and daughters 
how to manipulate the sari. Zarah had learned from 


37 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

them and had acquired a knack of winding yards upon 
yards of stuff about her slender person, as far down as 
her ankles and back again to her lissom waist, where she 
stuffed the ends in. She had wrapped yards of some 
glittering, yellow material around her this day, tightly 
enough to outline her superb figure but not to impede 
her movements as she walked upon her toes and from her 
hips in a manner insolent beyond words. Her beautiful 
arms and neck were bare, her small feet shod in golden 
sandals; she wore no jewels and looked young and inno¬ 
cent and altogether harmless until she looked up and side¬ 
ways into the guest’s eyes. 

She sighed a little and clasped her hands just above 
her heart of flint and looked down again, well content, 
believing that the love-stricken man would be on her side 
whatever punishment her outraged father should feel 
inclined to pass upon her in his terrible wrath. 

“My heart is broken, my pride shattered, the law of 
my fathers’ fathers set at naught by thee, O my 
daughter!” said the Sheikh quietly, as he sat, torn between 
a desire to pass the sentence of death upon the offender 
and a longing to spare the daughter he loved so much. 
“Know’st thou that if my men were to sit in judgment 
upon thee that they would drive thee out into the desert 
to die of hunger and thirst for what thou hast done to 
this my guest?” 

Zarah bent her head and stood with hands clasped upon 
her breast, a figure of contrition; and it was as well the 
deluded men were unable to see the look in her eyes or the 
twitching of the fingers which were aching to steal to 
a very small but very workmanlike automatic she invari¬ 
ably carried in her girdle. 

“I am at a loss, my daughter. I would not humiliate 
thee before my men, who will one day serve under thy rul¬ 
ing because, as the proverb says, ‘Him who makes chaff 
of himself the cows will eat.’ ” 

He paused as the guest murmured, “El liamdoo ViUahy 


38 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


which is the correct response to the proverb and is trans¬ 
lated, “Thanks be to God, that is not my weakness.” 

There was not a sound as Zarah stood watching the men, 
nor movement as the men watched her from under half- 
closed lids, the guest with thoughts of her beauty, the 
father with fear as to which way his tiger-daughter would 
spring. 

“Never has a father been so outraged in his honour 
as I by thee, O Zarah; never has a guest been so outraged 
as mine in all the history of the race.” The Sheikh 
plucked at his beard as he spoke, a sure sign of anger, 
though his soft voice was not raised one tone by the wrath 
which surged within him. “I know not how my guest 
will look upon that which I am about to propose, nay! 
nor if I dare to darken the honour of his house by my 
proposition.” 

He looked towards the Emeer, who looked back at him, 
then sat silent, watching the girl who swayed a little 
upon her feet like some golden lily in the wind. 

“Wilt thou O my guest of whom I crave pardon for the 
insult put upon thee by my child,” said the Sheikh at 
last, “wilt thou take her now, bereft of all dignity, as 
wife, to serve their Excellencies thy wives as handmaiden 
until the stain upon her honour and my honour be wiped 
out?” 

There was no doubt as in what direction the tiger- 
daughter would literally spring. 

She sprang straight forward, eyes blazing, face dis¬ 
torted with rage, looking from one man to the other and 
back as, without waiting to see how the Emeer would 
take the suggestion, she flung a proverb of protest at him. 

“Nay! Nay! Nay!” she screamed. “ ‘My meat and his 
meat cannot be cooked in the same pot !’ ” 

“Peace, daughter!” said the Sheikh sharply, “lest I 
drive thee myself out into the desert to die. All that is 
mine is my guest’s, my bread, my horses, my wealth and 
thou, if he will deign to look upon thee.” 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


39 


He spoke with the Oriental’s habitual extravagance of 
speech, but, under the agony of the blow dealt his pride 
by his daughter, with the firm intention of giving all he 
possessed to the insulted man if by so doing he could 
obliterate the stain upon his own name. “Wilt have her, 
with jewels and horses and cattle and slaves, O my guest?” 

The Emeer slowly shook his shaven turbaned head. 

The offer was tempting indeed, but the brief insight 
into the girl’s character, allied to the memory of the 
warring factions already established in his house, had 
decided him. 

He was getting on in years, with a liking for peace, 
good food and long hours of sleep; his line was firmly 
established, his fortune big enough to buy or hire maidens 
for the song or the dance. 

Why run the risk, he had argued to himself during the 
altercation between his host and the girl, of keeping a 
caged tiger which, in all probability, would maul the 
household if let loose, when tame cats, using their claws 
only upon each other, could be kept safely at large? 

“ ‘More just than a balance’ art thou, O my brother” 
he quoted, stroking his beard, “but not for one thousand 
woebe filled with gold pieces and precious stones would 
I of her.” 

In her fury at the man’s indifference and the insult to 
her beauty, Zarah brought her punishment upon herself. 

“Thou wouldst not of me!” she stormed, as she stepped 
back and threw out her arms. “Of me! Thou , with thy 
beard thinning upon thy ageing face and thy person 
rounded as a mosque beneath thy belt.” She laughed 
shrilly, looking like some trapped, wild beast, with her 
flashing yellow eyes and perfect teeth. “Look to thy 
black slaves for thy cooking, to thy withered wives for 
dance and song. I have the blood of the whites in me, 
1 -” 

“ ’Tis a pity,” said the Emeer, making a gesture of 
resignation before the verbal storm which hurtled about 



40 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


his head. “Yea! ’tis a pity that thou dost not go to thy 
mother’s people and so rid our race of one who does it 
no honour!” 

“Ah!” softly exclaimed Sheikh Mohammed-Abd, as he 
let slip the rosary of Mecca between his fingers. “Well 
said, O my guest! Thou showest the way, thou hold’st 
a torch to lighten my feet in the darkness; through thy 
w T ords of wisdom shall peace fall upon my dwelling for a 
space and the whip upon the shoulders of she who has 
disgraced me.” 

The men sat silent, the amber mouthpieces of the 
nagilehs between their lips, whilst Zarah, utterly un¬ 
daunted, filled in the time by smoking innumerable ciga¬ 
rettes with her back turned to the dais, which childish and 
uncontrolled action caused the Emeer to smile in his 
thinning beard. 

The Arab delights in deliberation and procrastination, 
and it is wise to let him talk round and round his subject 
or, if it please him better, to sit for long moments, even 
to the length of an hour, communing with his thoughts. 

“Yea,” gently said the Sheikh at the end of twenty 
minutes’ hard thinking, “it is ordained. Thou, Zarah, 
O my daughter, shalt go to the big school in Cairo where 
attend the daughters of the whites who sojourn for a 
while in Egypt, and there shalt thou learn the manners 
and customs of thy mother’s people.” 

If he had proposed strangling the girl on the spot she 
could not have shown more horror. 

“Thou wilt send me to Cairo,” she cried, flinging 
round, “me, who must one day, even at thy death, rule 
in thy stead. Nay! Make not the sign against the evil 
day, for die thou must . Thou art mad, O my father, 
nearing thy dotage or distraught or sick of a fever. 
What can they do, these white folk, to make me more 
than I am? Can they enhance my beauty by their ugly 
raiment? Or teach me anything that I do not know 
about horses or the dance, or soften my voice by teaching 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


41 


me their language, which sounds like the hissing of snakes 
caught in a basket; can they?” 

“Nay! they cannot!” indifferently replied the Sheikh, 
who was as easy to move as a pyramid once his mind was 
set upon a project. “But they can teach thee to eat 
even as did thy mother and less like a dog with a bone 
between its teeth; also can they drive home the duty of 
a daughter towards her father’s guests. For two years 
shalt thou sojourn amongst the stranger, then will I 
marry thee to whomsoever I will, if perchance there be a 
man who will look with favour upon one who has so dis¬ 
honoured the name of her father.” 

The Emeer, who was thoroughly enjoying the taming 
of the beautiful shrew, nodded his head in approval, where¬ 
upon the girl’s hand slipped to her girdle. She was mad 
with rage, ripe for direst mischief, ready to kill through 
the workings of her untutored mind, but she reckoned 
without the Sheikh, who had not ruled a band of outlaws 
for nothing. 

As her hand slipped to her girdle he sprang, and, 
catching her by the wrist, flung her to the floor, wrench¬ 
ing the pistol from her fingers, whilst the Emeer sat un¬ 
moved, nodding his turbaned head. 

She was on her feet in an instant, breathless, undaunted, 
magnificent in her fury. 

“O thou she cried, “who thinkest that a woman can 
be quelled by threats. Thou canst not even keep me by 
thy side. I leave this place for ever to-night, taking with 
me the men who, in their youth and strength, love me, 
leaving thee the grey-beards and women and children. 
O! thou fool, thou fool!” 

She turned and ran swiftly across the hall as the 
Sheikh clapped his hands; she stopped dead as two gigan¬ 
tic Abyssinian slaves suddenly appeared in the doorway 
to inquire their master’s bidding. 

“Let loose the greyhounds for the night!” curtly com¬ 
manded the Sheikh. 


42 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


The slaves pressed the pink palms of their dusky hands 
against their foreheads and turned to go. 

With a mighty effort Zarah played for her position 
as future ruler of the two servants, and won. 

“Bring me first my body-women—here—at once!” 

The two slaves stood like graven images for an infinites¬ 
imal fraction of a second, whilst she looked them full in 
the eyes, then they bowed to the very ground before her 
and departed—to do her bidding. 


CHAPTER III 


“Suspicious, treacherous, remote from good works.” 

—Arabic Proverb. 

Neither storms of tears nor threats of suicide having 
proved potent enough to alter the Sheikh’s decision, 

Zarah, with as good a grace as she could muster, had 

acknowledged a temporary defeat and resigned herself 
to a visit of two years’ duration to the well-known school 
for young European ladies over the age of fifteen in 
Cairo. 

The school, exclusive, expensive, was looked upon more 
as a home from home, where distracted mothers could 
deposit the offspring they had not had the sense to 

leave behind in cooler climes; as an establishment where 

angles could be rounded and manners polished rather 
than a seminary where such dull things as grammar 
and arithmetic could be learned. 

The Misses Cruikshanks had spent the hours they 
should have passed in the siesta in threshing out the 
question of introducing a pupil of mixed parentage into 
the society of the pure-bred, if somewhat insipid, young 
women entrusted to their charge. 

“We have made it our strictest rule, Jane. Europeans 
only!” 

“We have, Amelia, and Maria Oporto, the dull little 
Portuguese, is almost as swarthy and dense as the new 
scullery-maid who is a mixture of Arab and Abyssinian!” 
had countered Jane, who kept the books and knew to 
a piastre what the new wing, with the gymnasium, was 
going to cost. 

“We may lose our entire connexion if we break it, 
Jane.” 


43 


44 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


“Not if we emphasize the title of her maternal grand¬ 
father. Remember, he was a Spanish nobleman. Besides, 
look at the terms offered. No interference from the 
father, who is evidently a person of great position in 
Arabia, fees for two years which will come to as much, if 
not more, than the fees for all the pupils put together 
for three years, and extra for holidays if we will keep 
her with us.” 

“Of course, we might make enough to buy a cottage 
in Cornwall and retire, if we took the plunge, Jane.” 

“We might, if you think we could exchange this for 
east winds and grey skies.” 

They had both turned and looked out through the 
open window to the intense blueness of the sky, the glare 
of the sun, and the green of the palms tossing in the 
light breeze. 

The school stood in the European quarter, within a 
stone’s throw of the Midan w’here the young ladies, whose 
parents could afford the extra course in riding, exercised 
and worried their riding master’s patience and their 
mounts to fiddle-strings before breakfast twice a week. 

All the joyous or irritating noises, according to your 
mood, of a big Egyptian city had come to the spinsters’ 
ears as they had sat, uncertain, weighing the pros and 
cons of the problem. 

“If we break the rule just this once—and after all 
she is half Spanish—we might be able to go round the 
world before retiring,” had tempted Jane, who hadn’t the 
slightest intention of giving up work until she dropped 
dead between the shafts of enterprise. 

“And I dare say she will be a dear, gentle, little soul, 
with big brown eyes and pretty ways,” had replied 
Amelia, surrendering unconditionally. 

The “gentle little soul” swept down upon Jane and 
Amelia Cruikshanks like a tornado, leaving a trail of 
wreckage in her path. 

She duly arrived at midday, on camel-back, alone, sur- 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


45 


rounded by an armed escort, with half a dozen snarling 
dromedaries, laden with gifts, bringing up the rear. 

A shouting, delighted crowd from the streets surged 
into the school grounds in the wake of the dromedaries, 
trampling down the sparse flowers and the cherished 
grass; the girls refused to move from the windows in 
response to the bell for tiffin, and screamed with delight 
when the boot-bo}’ - inadvertently opened the door of a 
cage containing six black and white monkeys and allowed 
them to escape into the house. 

Having sworn some unprintable oaths and lain her 
whip smartly across the shoulders of the camel driver 
•who had not shown himself over-deft in getting her camel’s 
legs tucked under, Zarah swept regally into the cool 
hall. She made a startling picture in blazing magenta 
satin embroidered in gold, as she greeted the Misses 
Cruikshanks. They quaked visibly at the knee—at 
least Amelia did—whilst the armed escort, in concert with 
the school servants, packed the hall with bales of silk, 
boxes of sweetmeats, cages of birds, trays of jewels, 
and exquisite pots in brass and earthenware. Amelia 
trotted forward in greeting, and nearly swooned under 
the overpowering scent which emanated from the new 
pupil’s raiment, whilst Jane eyed her from veiled head to 
dainty sandal and, being an infallible judge of character 
by dint of sheer practice, set her mouth. Her heart, 
heavy through the school-books which had shown a dis¬ 
tinct deficit, had been considerably lightened when the 
Sheikh had paid her in advance half the fees due for the 
taming of his child; and she had not the slightest intention 
of refunding that thrice-blessed sum, even if she had to 
emulate Job for a period of two years, whilst breaking in 
the girl committed to her care. 

“I’m here and I’m hungry!” said Zarah, in French, 
in response to Miss Amelia’s greeting, who thereupon 
withdrew her hand with a hurt look in her gentle, blue 
eyes. 


46 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


“Are you?” decisively replied Jane, who adored the 
sister she ruled. “Then you’d better come and join 
the other girls at tiffin after you’ve washed your 
hands.” 

Zarah walked slowly across to the insignificant look¬ 
ing little woman, with the snap in the blue eyes and the 
kink in the reddish hair, and smiled. 

“Behold! we are sisters in command. I rule men, you 
women. It will, I think, O Sister, rest with you if I stay 
or no!” 

“You’re staying!” flatly replied Jane Cruikshanks. 
“Come and wash your hands.” 

“I wash them after food.” 

“You wash them before, here. Come !” 

Half a moment’s hesitation and Zarah turned to fol¬ 
low the one person who was ultimately to win her respect, 
if not her affection. 

“I will first command my men to depart.” 

The girls hung out of every window, the servants 
peeked round the corners of the house, a still greater 
crowd collected to watch beautiful, disdainful Zarah 
when she appeared at the door and raised her right hand 
as a sign of dismissal to the armed escort. 

A firework display could hardly have been more 
entrancing to the native onlookers than the escort’s 
departure. 

With a shout the men flung themselves into their 
saddles, pulled their horses until they reared, fired a 
salvo of farewell, and tore through the gates like a 
cyclone, homeward bound; upon which Miss Amelia, who 
believed in doing her duty against the most appalling 
odds, trotted out to fetch the girl in. 

“My dear!” she said sweetly, “I’m afraid the rice will 
be somewhat heavy if you delay much longer, oh! and 
look, they have forgotten the dromedaries!” 

“They are a gift from the Sheikh, my father,” replied 
Zarah, as she bent low before the astounded little school 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 47 

mistress. “To the honoured head of the house in which 
his daughter is to dwell!” 

“Quite so, my dear, quite so. Fm delighted with the 
pets. Come with me!” replied Miss Amelia, who could 
always be depended upon to rise to any occasion, and 
who secretly returned thanks that the great Sheikh 
had not seen fit to send six oxen as well. 

The heads of the house withdrew, after the usual intro¬ 
duction of the new pupil to the older ones had taken 
place and a little speech of welcome been made by Helen 
Raynor, the head of the school. She was the girls’ 
ideal, before whose shrine they offered the incense of 
their girlish hero-worship, and was leaving next day to 
act as secretary to her grandfather who, an expert in 
the sinking of wells, was known all the world over as 
Egypt’s Water Finder. 

Zarah, accustomed to cushions on the floor, sat down 
uncomfortably on a chair at the end of the table and 
finally drew her feet up under her, to the delight of the 
girls who surreptitiously nudged each other until they 
met the reproachful eyes of Helen Raynor, their best- 
beloved and model in all things. 

They gasped when Zarah, whose thoughts were any¬ 
where but on the doings of the moment, took a handful 
of rice from the bowl passed down the line, and stuffed a 
fair quantity between her teeth with her jewelled, hen¬ 
naed fingers, which she proceeded to wipe forthwith 
on the table-cloth; but when she made use of her beautiful 
teeth to tear the meat from the drumstick of the emaciated 
fowl which followed the rice, then Maria Oporto, whose 
own methods of mastication were unduly audible and 
left much to be desired, burst into a peal of uncontrollable 
laughter. 

o # 

The laughter did not last long, for the simple reason 
that, with unerring aim and almost as though she 
handled a loaded stick, Zarah flung the chicken bone full 
in Maria Oporto’s swarthy face, hitting her straight 


48 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

across the mouth; whereupon, taking no notice of Helen 
Raynor, as lovely in her golden hair and blue eyes and 
exquisite skin as was Zarah in her dusky beauty, when 
she rose to quell the tumult which broke out at the 
table, Maria Oporto, in floods of tears, subsided on the 
floor. 

“Girls!” Helen cried above the uproar that ensued, 
“do remember what is expected of us towards a new 
boarder, and play up for the courtesy of the house; at 
present, you are being simply vulgar.” There fell a 
complete silence. “It’s ten to one if any of us were 
lunching with the friends of our new companion that 
they would find our habits unusual, not to say strange.” 

She smiled across at Zarah, who sat sullenly, without 
a smile, victim of a sudden, violent jealousy of the other 
girl’s charm and beauty and breeding. 

Yet might all have gone well if Maria Oporto had not 
lifted her swarthy face, stained with a mixture of gravy 
and tears, above the edge of the table. 

“Yes!” she shrilled at Zarah in execrable Spanish, 
“and it’s a pity Helen Raynor’s going away to-morrow 
or you might have learned how to behave from her. She’s 
wonderful, and beautiful, and the dearest darling in 
the whole world, but you will never, never, never be any¬ 
thing like her, you couldn’t, you’re a savage, that’s what 
you are, a savage!” 

Followed a strangely dramatic scene. 

Zarah, daughter of the desert, gifted with the Eastern’s 
prophetic powers, rose slowly to her feet, gripping the 
back of her chair with one hand as she pointed at the 
English girl with the other. 

“I do not know who you are, English girl,” she said 
in French, “nor whence you came or where you go, but 
our paths have crossed at the place appointed by Fate, 
and they will cross and recross, and you will hold what I 
desire, and I will wrest it from you.” Her great eyes, 
the colour of the desert sand, opened wide as she leant 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


49' 


forward in the shuttered room, staring far beyond Helen 
Raynor and far beyond the room and the garden wall 
outside, into the future. She spoke quietly, as though to 
herself, and the girls and Jane Cruikshanks, who stood 
unnoticed in the doorway, shivered slightly as they 
listened. “I know not what I have to learn from you 
unless it is pain, English girl; I know not what it is that 
you hold and I desire, for behold! I see myself upon the 
topmost peak of a high mountain and you as dust 
beneath my feet. And I see steps, and coming up the 
steps one who turns his face from me to you so that I 
see naught but a scar upon his forehead. I can see no 
more. I—I-” 

She backed from the table and stood against the wall, 
unconsciously dramatic under the power of the gift of 
prophecy, which had come to her with her father’s blood, 
then turned and left the room. 

Jane Cruikshanks, who had never been known to miss, 
an opportunity, immediately stepped forward and poured 
the cold water of common sense and reasoning upon the 
conflagration of immature romance which flared in the 
twenty young hearts around the dining-room table: 
explained and suggested things, until the girls declared 
themselves as only too willing to co-operate in the task 
of civilizing the new arrival. 

* * * % # 

“Sometimes love has been 'planted by one glance alone ” 

—Arabic Proverb. 

It proved no easy matter. 

Stifled in the narrow confines of the best bedroom, Zarah 
smashed the windows on the first night and plumped her 
mattress on the verandah, and, waking at dawn, as was 
her custom in her mountain home, sprang at the gar¬ 
dener, who gazed enraptured upon the sleeping beauty* 






50 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


causing him to fall backwards down the steps and twist 
an ankle; upon which disaster, and in an effort to stop 
his vociferous lamentations, she dashed into her bedroom, 
and, through the broken window, flung a bag of gold 
at him, which, catching him in the chest, caused him to 
forget the hurt to his ankle and to fall upon his knees 
with his face turned towards Mecca in thanksgiving for 
the unexpected stroke of good fortune. 

Undisciplined, uncontrolled, miserable through want 
of occupation and interest in those about her, she simply 
refused to work or to obey in any way, until silver 
streaks appeared in Amelia Cruikshanks’ mousey, scanty 
hair. 

The first day after her arrival she flung her entire 
silken wardrobe on the ground and her magnificent jewel¬ 
lery on the top, and stamped on it all when the maid 
came to tidy the litter, then cursed the terrified menial 
until she fled the room and rushed to the distracted 
maiden sisters to give notice. 

When Amelia Cruikshanks, greatly fearing, ap¬ 
proached the new pupil with a cotton skirt and blouse 
and necessary under-garments, and gently intimated 
that they would become her better than the heavily 
embroidered silks and satins and jewellery she wore, she 
tore the offending articles to ribbons and wound herself 
from neck to heel in something scarlet and of a great 
daring. She boxed the servants’ ears with one hand and 
loaded them with gifts with the other, until their time 
was fully occupied in running to give notice and running 
back to retract it. She smoked in bed and all over the 
house, and trailed into class heavily scented, laden with 
jewels, beautiful, arrogant, scornful, to sit cross-legged 
upon the floor watching the girls from under her heavily 
fringed lids. The third day after her arrival she lounged 
into the room where Signor Enrico was essaying to find 
a golden thread among a British damsel’s throaty vocal 
chords, and, seizing a guitar from the wall, sang a pas- 


51 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

sionate Arabian love song in her glorious contralto until 
the whole house crept to the door to listen and the profes¬ 
sor tore his hair in rapture. 

She sat up o’ nights for the best part of the first week 
brooding upon the incident of the chicken bone and the 
insult with which Maria Oporto’s derisive words had 
scorched her memory. So deeply did she resent the inci¬ 
dent, for so long did she brood, that she ended by hating 
the very memory of Helen Raynor and her beauty and her 
influence over the house. 

It is not wise to jest with the Arab, but it is absolutely 
fatal to hold him up to ridicule. He will revenge the 
pleasantry at his expense sooner or later, even if he has 
to wait for years or even a lifetime; even if he has to 
leave this world with the task unaccomplished, handing 
it down as a heritage to his children. 

“Savage!” she said, as she watched the sunset on the 
first night of her arrival. “ Savage! I will make that 
toad-faced daughter of a cross-eyed she-camel eat her 
words mixed with bitterness before we part. 1 will make 
them, all of them, the pale-faced daughters, the plank¬ 
bodied elders, the miserable servants, acknowledge me as 
queen in this barren dwelling before my two years of 
prison are spent. I will make them forget the English 
girl as though she had never been, and when I meet her 
again, the haughty, contemptuous, Helen Raynor-r-r, for 
it is written that we shall meet, I will make her wish that 
death had smitten her before the crossing of our paths. 

By -” She swore a mighty oath as the sun slipped 

behind the far horizon; she repeated it at every sunset, 
and she kept it, spurred to its fulfillment by Jane Cruik- 
shanks, who tumbled to the one way of making the girl 
walk upon the road which stretched in the contrary direc¬ 
tion to that primrose path of dalliance upon which she 
desired to travel. 

“Wait, my dear Amelia!” Jane said at the end of the 
first two tempestuous months as she brushed her crisp 



52 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


hair, whilst Amelia voiced the desirability of returning 
the girl to her father. “She is learning slowly, but she is 
learning; I can see a difference already, although she is 
too proud to confess to room for improvement. When we 
find something to really interest her, then we shall be 
secure. I told her she was not quick enough to learn 
English. What is the result? She already speaks a 
few words. I tell her she is too clumsily built to w r ear 
European clothes. What do we see, or, rather, what do 
we not see? She wears a riding corset, many sizes too 
big for her it is true, but she wears it, also shoes with 
heels as high as the Great Pyramid. I repeat, w r e have 
but to find something that will really interest her and 
she will not want to leave us.” 

The riding lessons proved the cure for the homesick¬ 
ness which overwhelmed the Sheikh’s daughter. 

She went out one morning to watch the riding-master 
put six of the girls, and the hacks they rode more or less 
intelligently, through their paces, and stayed to make 
rings round the man and to terrify the girls by the 
marvellous stunts she performed on the master’s horse. 
She sent a courier for her own stallion, a pure white, 
pure bred Nejdee, to receive instead six mares which she 
presented to the Misses Cruikshanks as a gift from her 
father, with the intimation that he made himself respon¬ 
sible for their upkeep and stable fees. 

She established a class of her own for special riding 
lessons, to which she invited a chosen few; she secretly 
trained the least gentle of the mares to buck and rear 
at the word “Oporto”; she lured Maria Oporto on to the 
beast’s back and put the girl through half an hour which 
nearly proved her end. 

“It’s a pity you can’t stick on!” she cried scornfully 
when the Portuguese fell at her feet in a sitting position 
and with a most resounding thud. “You might learn to 
ride if you did. The mare’s wonderful and beautiful and 
the dearest darling in the w r orld, but you’ll never, never. 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 53 

never ride, you couldn’t, you’re a sack of potatoes, that’s 
what you are, a sack of potatoes.” 

The first shoot of the poisonous weed of revenge rooted 
in her heart. 

Little by little she changed outwardly, until Amelia 
and Jane Cruikshanks came to look upon her as one of 
their best pupils, plus a millionaire in the way of a father. 

“How beautifully she sits, and walks, and behaves at 
table,” said Amelia to Jane as they w T atched Zarah in 
the grounds one morning in the middle of her last term. 
“What a credit to us when she goes with the elder girls 
to a theatre or a dance. How attractive to the opposite 
sex-” 

“And yet, how dignified, almost scornful!” 

“How beautiful in her European clothes, and how 
sweetly obedient in wearing them and in only smoking 
three times a day, and then in the seclusion of her bed¬ 
room.” 

64 Yes! But I am glad we allowed her to wear her 
native dress every morning when she rides by herself on 
the Midan before anyone is about. One cannot be too 
severe with an opening little heart like hers.” 

“We shall be simply, lost without her—how quick she 
is in her studies—how generous-” 

“Yes, indeed. Did you know that she found little Cissie 
Jenkins in tears this morning and gave her a silver brace¬ 
let and a big box of Turkish delight to comfort her?” 

She hadn’t. 

She had struck the child for no cause whatever, in a 
sudden flash of the cruelty which had earned her her 
nickname, even amongst her father’s savage followers, 
and which deep down, lay dormant, fierce and terrible, 
under the veneer of breeding with which the deluded 
little school-mistresses had plastered her. She had bribed 
the child to silence with gifts, whilst longing to strike 
the podgy little face again; she craved for the end of 
the term -when she could tear the stifling European clothes 




54 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


from her, eat with her fingers, sit cross-legged, and smoke 
all day long if she so pleased. 

One thing she had learned in her sojourn amongst the 
whites, which, for a time, was to enable her to establish 
herself as a very ruler of uncivilized men. 

She had learnt the rudiments of self-control. 

Where she had leapt blindly under the lash of her 
ungovernable temper, she now waited, giving her crafty 
brain time to work; where she had once stormed and 
raved, she now shrugged her shoulders and smiled with a 
“I will give you my answer later. I must have time to 
think.” 

Admired for her beauty, envied for her brilliance, 
liked for the seemingly generous way in which she flung 
money to beggars and gifts to all and sundry, yet she 
had failed to take Helen Raynor’s place in the hearts of 
those who had known her, so that she cherished an incred¬ 
ible hatred for the girl who had done her no harm what¬ 
ever. 

She stood on the verandah this morning, an hour before 
breakfast, waiting for her syce to bring her mare, staring 
across the grounds towards the Midan where guests of the 
Hotel Savoy also waited for their horses; stared without 
seeing them or Fate crouching under the cactus hedge 
which separated the school grounds from the Midan. 

She was almost at the zenith of her beauty, which, 
in the East, buds, blossoms, and fades almost in the 
passing of an hour; she was infinitely good to look upon, 
as thought the gardener who had gazed upon her the 
first night of her arrival, as he peered in admiration 
at her from behind a clump of shrubs this day—her last 
in the school if she had but known it. 

She wore satin trousers so voluminous that they hung 
like a skirt when she did not move; a full short-sleeved 
chiffon vest under a black velvet bolero, sandals on her 
feet, a scarlet belt about her slim waist and an orange- 
coloured flower in her rebellious curls. 


55 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

As she stood waiting, she idly compared the men who 
had come as suitors for her hand to her mountain home 
just over two years ago, with the European men she had 
met in her short excursions into the world under the wing 
of a schoolmate’s mother, stationed in Cairo. 

She smiled and shrugged her shoulders and reached 
for a pomegranate into which, knowing herself to be 
alone, she drove her teeth in none too dainty a manner. 

“Love,” she said, as she laughed. “What have I, who 
will one day rule, to do with men? If love is to come to 
me, to me it will come. ‘Thy beloved is the object that 
thou lovest, were it even a monkey.’ ” She laughed again 
as she quoted the Arabian proverb. “ Kismet! let love 
come to me, I will even conquer love!” 

She spread her fingers against the Arab’s belief in the 
ill-luck of even numbers as a clock struck six, and ran to 
the top of the steps at the sound of shouting from the 
Midan. 

Shouting and a scream and the thunder of a horse’s 
hoofs. She clapped her hands in delight at the sound, 
knowing that a horse, with the bit between its teeth, was 
heading straight for the cactus hedge and trouble; 
thrilled from head to foot, and ran down the steps towards 
the spot where, her desert-trained ear told her, the 
horse w T as making for; raised herself on tiptoe and laughed 
aloud at the sight of the terrified, riderless beast racing 
towards her. 

“Blind and mad with fear,” she thought as she stood 
w r aiting. 

Terror is just the one thing that will take a horse 
over a cactus hedge with its dagger points as strong as 
steel; on ordinary occasions you may use your spurs 
or your w r hip or try coaxing or deception, only to find 
that your horse will rear or plunge or roll or stand stock 
still, shaking with fear, rather than approach within 
yards of the deadly barrier. 

^Terrified by a newspaper which had been blown into 


56 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


its face by the breeze, Bustard, thoroughbred stallion 
and Ralph Trenchard’s favorite mount, had broken from 
his syce and made for the open, heedless of the prickly 
fence which stretched between the white thing that had 
jumped from the ground and struck him across the eyes, 
and liberty. 

Tucking his hind-quarters well under, he cleared the 
hedge with a inch to spare and landed magnificently by 
the side of the girl who, judging to a nicety the 
infinitesimal pause which follows a landing, caught the 
flowing mane and was into the saddle before the great beast 
had realized that a human was anywhere near. Shouts of 
“ Wali-wali!” and “By gad! well done!” came from the 
Midan where the riders rode up to the hedge to see what 
was happening, whilst those girls w T ho were advanced 
enough in their toilet tore from the school-house to witness 
this fresh escapade of the Sheikh’s daughter. 

Recognizing the stallion as a Nejdee, which, being 
translated, means perfection in horseflesh, Zarah did not 
attempt to use the reins; she rode with her knees, talking 
soothingly, calling the beautiful beast by soft names in 
the language of his own country until, bit by bit, he 
slackened from the runaway gallop to a canter, a canter 
to a trot, then stopped dead a few yards away from the 
school gates. 

Zarah looked over her shoulder and thrilled again; this 
time with a great desire to show her power over horses 
to the onlookers, but especially to her schoolmates, who 
seemed to think that life consisted of wearing the right 
clothes and eating from the end of a fork. 

She turned Bustard and took him at a canter to the 
place in the hedge where the cactus was well hidden under 
a mass of creeper; she smiled when, scenting mischief, he 
danced sideways and shook his handsome head, and took 
him back over and over again, talking to him until at 
last he stood quite still and tried to nibble the nearest 
leaf. By the same token, if she had been by herself and 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


57 


wearing her golden spurs, she would have raked the satiny 
sides with the needle points until she had forced him over 
through sheer agony. Instead,, aware; of spectators, 
she took him back to the far side of the grounds, turned 
him, called to him, rode him at a thundering gallop at the 
hedge and lifted him magnificently over, failing to notice 
what looked like an overhanging branch, but was really 
a finger of Fate, which swept her out of the saddle and 
senseless into Ralph Trenchard’s arms. 

She opened her eyes and looked into the handsome face 
as he carried her across the grounds. “You,” she said, 
raising her hand to touch a scar upon his forehead, then 
smiled at the stirring of love in her heart. “I knew you 
would come, for so it is written,” she whispered, and 
relapsed into unconsciousness just as Jane Cruikshanks 
ran from the house, followed by a stately Bedouin, who 
had been sent by the dying Sheikh to fetch his daughter 
home. 


CHAPTER IV 


“Him who goodness will not mend, evil will not mend” 

—Arabic Proverb. 

Zarah stood at the point of the great V which cleft the 
outer ring of the mountains, and from which started the 
path leading down to the plateau. 

That the dying Sheikh’s daughter was expected there 
was no doubt, as showed the bonfires upon the mountain’s 
highest peaks, streaking the purple, starlit sky with 
orange flames; yet, save for the Arab who stood patiently 
near the spear which marked the beginning of the hidden 
path, with the camels which had brought them safely and 
at full speed across the desert and the quicksands, there 
was neither sign of life nor shout of greeting nor firing 
of rifles in salutation. 

She looked back across the limitless, billowing desert, 
showing under the stars like a great ocean of endless, 
unbroken waves frozen into immobility as they surged 
from north to south, by some magician’s hand. She 
laughed softly at the thought of the civilization she had 
dropped, as one drops an outworn cloak from about the 
shoulders, and had left for ever upon the outskirts of 
the great desert of which she was the child. She looked 
ahead into the future and down the narrow path dividing 
her from the dying man, over whose kingdom in the heart 
of the mountains she would so shortly rule. 

Giving no thought to her father in her utter selfish¬ 
ness, she laughed aloud in sheer delight at the picture 
conjured up by her ambition, laughed until the sweet, soft 
notes were flung against the rocks by the hot wind from 
the south and carried through the cleft down to the open 

58 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


59 


space where they were thrown in echo, from this side to 
that side over the sparkling waters until they broke and 
were lost in the baying of the great dogs which, eyes red 
with hate and ruffs upstanding, fought to get out of the 
kennels so as to reach the woman they hated. 

She shivered at the sound, although the hot wind from 
the south enfolded her like a blanket, and, suddenly over¬ 
whelmed with a desire to see some living creature in 
the place of death and shadows, took a quick step for¬ 
ward, then shrank behind a rock. 

Upon a ledge, high up on the mountainside, to which 
it seemed that only a goat could possibly have climbed, 
sat blind Yussuf, singing to himself: “ ‘The corn passeth 
from hand to hand, but it cometh at last to the mill.’ ” 

He sang the words of the proverb as he sat staring 
down at Zarah the Cruel as though he had eyes in the 
scarred face with which to see her. 

“It cometh at last to the mill! It cometh at last to 
the mill!” , 

He repeated the words over and over again whilst the 
rosary of Mecca slipped between his sensitive fingers, and 
the girl, steeped in the superstition of her race, spread 
hers in the gesture to ward off misfortune and touched 
an amulet of good luck which hung about her neck. 

Did he know she was there? Had he come, ironically, 
to welcome her and to bid her hasten to her father’s side, 
as had bidden the man who had awaited her at Hutah 
with swiftest camels? Or had he, dire figure of ill omen, 
been set upon her path by Fate this night, when the 
scorching wind blew from the south heralding the storm? 
There was no time to ponder the question; there was only 
just time enough in which to register a vow to lay some 
cunning trap into which the blind man should set his 
feet and find his death as though by dire mischance. No! 
there was no time, for she suddenly fathomed the mean¬ 
ing of the intense silence and stillness, and, gathering her 
draperies about her, slipped as noiselessly as some tiger 


60 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


cat under the ledge upon which the blind man sat, and 
down the steep path. 

She did not look up, she did not look back, else might 
she have seen the face of Yussuf the blind turned in her 
direction, with the scarred mouth twisted in a smile. She 
sped as quickly as the path would allow her, spurred by 
the thought of the men who, gathered round their dying 
chief, only waited for the failing heart to cease beating 
to acclaim one of themselves as his successor in her place. 

She knew full well the man who would be chosen if she 
failed to reach her father in time. Even Al-Asad, half- 
caste, bloodthirsty, ambitious, as physically powerful as 
the lion after which he had been named, outcast from the 
Benoo-Harb tribe, but more through the fact that his 
father had been a Nubian slave than for the crimes he 
had committed in the light-heartedness of youth. 

As she ran she conjured up a picture of the man who 
had taken blind Yussuf’s place at her father’s right hand 
and who had dared to look at her with something more 
than the respect due to the Sheikh’s daughter in his hand¬ 
some eyes. 

There was no sign of any man as she fled across the 
plateau, neither—the hour for sleep having come for the 
women and children—was there sound of life, but a 
great light shone through the barred windows of the Hall 
of Judgment far up on the mountainside. She raced 
up the steps and stood, breathless, in the doorway, unseen 
by the men gathered about the man whom they loved 
and who lay dying of the wounds received in the last 
great fight with the Bedouins, who had fallen upon the 
brigands as they peacefully returned, with much spoil, 
from raiding a caravan journeying towards Oman. 

Knowing the effect of mystery upon her race, she 
wrapped herself in her great white cloak, pulled the veils 
about her face and a yashmak beneath her eyes, which 
flashed with no soft light. She cursed beneath her breath 
when the men rose and spoke together, looking towards 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 61 

Al-Asad, who stared down at the Sheikh lying so quietly 
at his feet. 

She had arrived too late; her father had died without 
blessing her and proclaiming her his successor. 

She cared nothing about the blessing, but she knew 
that without the proclamation she stood no earthly chance 
against the claim Al-Asad would enforce through sheer 
brute force. 

Superstition helped her in her need. 

She believed that the soul lingered in the body for 
three days after the heart had ceased to beat, and she 
acted unhesitatingly, fearlessly, upon the belief. 

She bent and picked up a lance lying upon the ground, 
and raised it above her head just as, without seeing her 
in the shadows, the men moved in a body towards Al-Asad., 

She pitted her indomitable will against the mighty 
power of death, she flung it across the space which divided 
her from her father, and, for a fraction of time, pulled 
him back to the world he had loved exceeding well. 

“Hail! father!” she shouted. 

“Hail! father!” she shouted again as the men turned 
swiftly in her direction, then moved hastily backwards 
when the right hand of the man whom they supposed dead, 
moved. 

Motionless from fear, they stared at, without recog¬ 
nizing, Zarah as she stood, tall and straight, in the 
shadows, wrapped in white from head to foot, her eyes 
half closed under the supreme effort she was making, her 
right hand raised, holding a spear ready for throwing. 

She bent a little forward as she made one last bid for 
power, and at the sonorousness of her voice, which 
sounded like the calling of the evil one in the mountains, 
the men touched the amulets around their necks. 

“Hail! father!” she shouted once again, until her 
words seemed to beat like wings against the walls, which 
had been built by holy hands. “Speak, father, ere thou 
passeth on. Speak! Speak! Speak!” 


62 


ZAXtAH THE CRUEL 


Al-Asad, the lion-hearted, backed against the wall as 
the Sheikh, his feet upon the edge of the world to come, 
slowly turned his head towards his daughter; the others 
flung the end of their cloaks across their eyes, touching 
their amulets. The girl stood quite still, her face dead 
white, her nostrils pinched, her breath whistling between 
her closed teeth. 

“Farewell, daughter. Rule wisely in my stead. Take 
only from those who have more than is necessary for 
life. Lift up the fallen, help the needy, spare not in 
charity towards my brother Yussuf, with whose safe¬ 
keeping I charge thee lest evil befall thee. Throw thou 
the spear ere I close my eyes, as a sign that thou steppest 
into my shoes, O my daughter.” 

The Sheikh’s words rang clear as a bell but as though 
from a long distance; his eyes did not waver as the spear, 
thrown with unerring aim, flashed across the room; he 
whispered “Mercedes,” and closed them for ever as it 
buried itself in the cushions at his feet. 

Zarah the Cruel had triumphed for a moment over 
death, but she had caught the look of dismay on Al-Asad’s 
face and the stealthy movement of the men’s hands 
towards their cummerbunds. Without hesitating, with no 
intention of allowing a second to elapse before driving 
her victory home, she passed slowly up the room towards 
the dais, unarmed, fearless in the strength of her tre¬ 
mendous personality. 

She took no notice of the men as, wrapped in her cloak 
and veils, she slowly ascended the steps of the dais and 
knelt to kiss her father; she looked down upon him for a 
moment, then taking a massive gold ring from the first 
finger of his right hand, slipped it on her own, and rose to 
her feet. 

“ ’Tis she,” whispered Bowlegs. “ ’Tis Zarah the 
Cruel!” 

“Nay, brother, it cannot be; she was a child bordering 
upon womanhood, This is a woman grown, who is as the 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


63 


gazelle in her walk and as the jasmine in her perfume. 
Maybe ’tis the spirit of her mother, who has come to meet 
her lord, or perchance-” 

They stopped speaking, and took a step nearer the 
centre of the dais as Zarah played her trump card. 

She dropped the veils from her head, the yashmak 
from before her face, and the cloak from her shoulders, 
standing revealed in the garments she had donned at 
Hutah in the oasis of Hareek. 

She was ravenous from hunger and almost dead with 
fatigue, but she stood without a tremor, glittering from 
head to foot in the jewels which embroidered the volu¬ 
minous orange-satin trousers, the golden, travel-stained 
sandals, and the bolero, which allowed the satin skin to 
show at the waist. Her face was white, her crimson mouth 
parted in a slight smile; her yellow eyes passed slowly 
from one face to the other and on to the next of those 
fierce, unscrupulous men, who watched her for a while 
and then, vyith all the inconstancy of the Arab, reverted, 
with the exception of Al-Asad, to their former allegiance as 
they succumbed to the call of her beauty. 

A sudden, tremendous shout of reception and of wel¬ 
come went up: 

“Aldan wasahlan! Ahlan wasahlan!” 

They shouted the words over and over again, until 
the women and children wakened on the far side of the 
mountains and the birds, which inhabited the secluded 
spot, rose twittering and screaming in clouds, to be whirled 
this way and that way by the wind from the south, which 
seemed, in its suffocating heat, to have swept across the 
open mouth of hell. 

Slowly Zarah the beautiful, the relentless, raised her 
right hand, upon which shone her father’s ring, above her 
head to quell the tumult, and, as a great silence fell, 
stretched it out to the men, who, with the exception of 
Al-Asad, rushed forward and, kneeling, touched her san¬ 
dalled foot, acknowledging her as chief. 



64 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


She had won. 

There was no tenderness, no love, in her eyes as she 
looked down upon them, neither was there softness in her 
heart as she looked into the future. She would rule the 
men with an iron hand and drive them with a whip of steel, 
favouring those who did her bidding, treading beneath 
her heel those who rebelled until she ground them in 
the dust. She would be their hadeeyah , the woman to 
lead them into battle, even as had led Ayesha, the wife 
of Mohammed, the Prophet of Allah, the one and only 
God; she would make the mountain home a corner of 
paradise and her dwelling a place of gold and precious 
stones, as a frame to her beauty. 

“I stand in my father’s place, O men!” she cried. 
“I have taken the reigns of government from the Sheikh’s 
fingers, which are locked in those of death. Obey me and 
I will raise you to heights you—nay, not one of you— 
have dreamed of; rebel, and I will set your bodies upon 
the highest peak as food for vultures. I will go forth 
with you, lead you—nay, give ear until I have come to 
the end of my words, for I will not speak again. Yea! 
I will lead you forth and bring you back with gold and 
cattle and fair women, until the fame of these rocks is 
spread from the north to the south and from the east 
to the west. I will have none but the beautiful, none 
but the brave, about me to do my bidding. I-” 

She stopped short at a sound from the far end of the 
hall and raised her head. Yussuf, blind, scarred, terrible 
to behold, stared back at her from the shadows of the 
door, challenging her proud statement with his empty 
orbits, repudiating her words without a sound or move¬ 
ment. 

. . save for Yussuf the Blind,” she concluded 
slowly, as she raged inwardly at the man’s temerity, 
“whom I must needs take to my heart in obedience to 
my father’s dying wish.” 

She gave no outward sign of the rage which swept her 



ZARAH THE CRUEL 


65 


as she finished speaking, but she looked round for someone 
upon whom to vent her wrath and found him in Al-Asad, 
who leant against the wall, watching her from out the 
corner of his eyes. 

“Thou!” she said, her voice cutting across the silence 
like a whip. “Whyfore standest thou when others kneel?” 

“The lion does not flee before the gazelle!” replied Al- 
Asad, who had loved her from the first moment he had seen 
her. 

Zarah made a little motion of her hand which brought 
the men to their feet, then beckoned Al-Asad, who walked 
slowly towards her and into the trap she had set for him. 
She had more than one weapon in her armoury and more 
than one form of punishment in her mind. 

That the man loved her, in his savage way, she had 
always known; that he had worked to succeed the dead 
Sheikh and thereby to force her into becoming his own 
woman if she wished to rule, she had guessed intuitively, 
and in a second of time had thought out a plan in which, 
through his humiliation, she could revenge herself for the 
insult. 

She was well above medium height, but seemed 
small beside Al-Asad as he towered above her, mighty 
arms folded across his breast, looking down upon her 
beauty. 

He was a magnificent animal, with all an animal’s 
instincts and a dog’s fidelity, but she feared him not a 
bit. She looked up at the handsome face with the 
almost negroid lips and into the flashing eyes and down 
into the heart, as childish as it was vain, and smiled 
and raised her hand when he made a quick step 
forward. 

“I am footsore,” she said softly. “I have cut my san¬ 
dals upon the rocky path.” 

She may have heard the sharp intake of breath, but 
she took no notice when the men turned, the one to the 
other, as Al-Asad knelt. His fingers trembled in the 


66 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


tumult of. his love for the beautiful woman as he unfast¬ 
ened the knotted ribbons of her sandals, his heart leapt 
as he bent and kissed the little foot, leaving his manhood 
in the dust beneath it. He sprang to his feet, holding 
the golden sandal against his breast, shrinking back 
against the wall at the men’s laughter, in which the woman 
he loved joined. 

“Neither does the gazelle fear the dead lion,” she 
mocked as he fled from the hall out into the night and up 
to his dwelling upon the mountainside, where he flung 
himself full length upon the ground with the golden san¬ 
dal against his lips. 

“I love thee, love thee, love thee!” he whispered, “and 
will serve thee to my last hour and with all my strength. 
If I cannot be thy king, thy master, I will be thy slave. 
One day perchance, thou too wilt waken to love and learn 
what suffering means.” 

If he had but known, love had come to her, love for 
the white man, causing her to suffer through the chafe 
of the chains which bound her. 

Zarah watched the great figure as he fled past blind 
Yussuf and through the doorway out into the night, 
then smiled, and stooping, lifted her cloak and spread it 
across the dead Sheikh. 

“I will sleep in the bed of my fathers,” she said curtly. 
“Bring me meat and wine to my bedchamber. To-morrow 
I will commit my dead father to the sands and will then 
make choice, amongst the slaves, for those who will attend 
me both night and day. Obey me, and it will be well with 
all of you; resist me, and your lives will be even darker 
than this night of storm.” 

The men, so long held upon the leash by the dead 
Sheikh, so long baffled in their fierce desires, shouted 
their praises as they made a way for her. She passed 
them without looking at them, glittering with jewels, 
superb in her strength. 

She climbed the steps leading to the dwelling wherein 


67 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

her father had slept, and up to the roof, and, leaning on 
the balustrade, raised her face to the sky which showed 
sullen and starless. 

Great sandstorms do not sweep the deserts of Arabia 
bringing devastation in their path, but the hot wind from 
the south will lift the topmost layer of sand hundreds of 
feet into the air, where it hangs like a pall across the 
heavens, causing men to hide their faces and cattle to 
flee for shelter from the terrific heat which descends from 
it, scorching the earth. 

She walked to the corner of the roof from which, 
through the cleft in the rocks, the red sands of the desert 
could be seen stretching in great waves away to the 
south. She stared down and drew her hands across her 
eyes, and stared again; drew back with a half-uttered 
cry of fear, then moved forward, leaning far over the 
coping, looking down. 

At the very edge of the quicksands and as far out 
across the great waste as eye could see, white shapes 
danced, and whirled, and bowed, retreating, advancing, 
whirling hand in hand, flinging their white raiment up to 
the sky, which hung, like a dun-coloured ceiling, low down 
above their caperings. 

The scorching, sand-laden wind blew against her lips 
and through her hair and seemed to press like a great bar 
of red-hot iron against the satin skin which showed 
beneath her bodice, and yet she stood looking down, watch¬ 
ing the light flicker this way and that way over the 
quicksands, and the ghostly forms running up in pairs, 
in ones, in twos, in files up and down and over the sand- 
waves until they melted into the far distance. 

She had heard the tale of the half-starved, half-witted, 
degenerate races which are supposed to inhabit the mys¬ 
terious, unexplored depths of the great desert; living like 
lizards, worshipping the elements, inter-marrying until 
brain and body are sapped of strength, and for the first 
time she felt grateful for the ring of quaking sand which 


68 


Z All AH THE CRUEL 


kept her safe from robbers, beasts, and such foul creatures 
as those which danced so merrily under the lowering sky. 

She loved beauty, she loved strength, and watched 
with a shudder until the last white figure, leaping and 
bounding, had followed its fellows back to the unexplored 
regions of the desert, then knelt and bowed her beautiful 
head almost to the ground. 

But she knelt before the scorching flames of the love 
which had sprung up in her heart for Ralph Trenchard 
as she had lain in his arms. Not for a day, nor for an 
hour of a day, had he been out of her thoughts since the 
morning of the accident. She lay awake at night thinking 
of the handsome face bent down to hers; she thrilled at 
the thought of his arms about her; she had thought of 
him unceasingly as she raced death to reach her father; 
she had sworn by the beard of the Prophet, which being 
a soulless woman she had no right to do, to bring him 
some day to her mountain home and for ever to her feet. 

She stretched out her anus and called him by name, 
scorched by the hot wind which had twisted the sand into 
dancing shapes, sending them capering and leaping this 
way and that way, in the cross-eddies from the east, 
a ghostly phenomenon seen once in a lifetime, if that. 

She ran to the side and looked out across the desert, 
which lay silent, foreboding, empty, and shivered under 
a sudden premonition of evil. 

“Where are you?” she cried, beating her hands upon 
the burning stones. “Where are you? I love you, love 
you, love you, and I am calling you.” 

There was no answer. 

* * * * * 

At that very moment Ralph Trenchard rode into the 
holiday camp pitched by Helen Raynor and her grand¬ 
father—Egypt’s Water Finder. They had pitched it 
some fifty miles west of Xsmailiah whilst they waited to 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


69 


start upon an expedition into Arabia, which had for its 
object the discovery of water hidden in the heart of a 
range of mountains, as described upon vellum inscribed 
by the Holy Palladius. 



CHAPTER V 


“A rose issues from thorns — Arabic Proverb. 

The desert looked like an immense mosque with vast 
purple dome inlaid with silvery stars, spread with a 
carpet of many colours—grey, amethyst, saffron, fawn 
—stretching to Eternity for the feet of worshippers to 
tread. It held the peace of great spaces and the prayer 
of the everlasting, and changed, in the twinking of the 
stars, to the likeness of a fairy meadow, in which flowers 
of every shape nodded and curtsied and bowed to each 
other, as far as e} 7 e could see; flowers formed by the light 
breeze which twisted and turned the sand into little 
spirals, until the desert seemed covered with dancing, sil¬ 
very poppies across which love came as silently, as unex¬ 
pectedly as it comes in country lanes or the city’s 
crowded thoroughfares. 

Helen Raynor looked over her shoulder towards the 
camp, pitched under the isolated palms which formed the 
so-called oasis, and smiled at the sound of her “boy’s” 
voice raised in what he termed a love song, but which 
had all the monotonous ring of a long-drawn-out litany 
of personal woes. 

She sat on a hummock of sand, dazzlingly fair in the 
starlight, with a smile of content on her broad, humorous 
mouth, and the expectancy of youth in her great, blue 
eyes, whilst the golden sand trickled between her fingers 
as she counted the seconds of the hour in which love and 
adventure were to come to her. 

She thought lazily of the hot-weather months just 
passed, spent quite happily in the big, old palace in 
Ismailiah bought by her grandfather who, in his wander- 

70 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


71 


ings in the desert, had acquired some of the attributes of 
the salamander and an unconscious thoughtlessness 
towards the well-being of his neighbour. 

Unattracted by the little she knew of the world, she 
had been intensely grateful at the unconventional turn 
life had taken three years ago, inaugurating a new mode 
of existence with vista of unknown lands and good promise 
of great adventure. She had proved herself of the great¬ 
est assistance to her irascible grandfather. There was no 
doubt about it, that, although he seldom bit, he certainly 
barked furiously, or rather, yapped without ceasing, 
driving others almost frantic through the methodical 
working of a mind which teased the most infinitesimal 
detail to shreds, wore him to fiddle-strings, led him from 
success to success and caused his secretaries one after the 
other to fold their tents and to steal away to less nerve- 
wracking fields of labour. 

Since leaving school, Helen had firmly established herself 
as his secretary and had accompanied him wherever he 
had been sent by the Irrigation Department. She had 
made herself responsible for his creature comforts, which 
almost amounted to nil, and the good conduct of the 
staff which learned to adore her, with the exception of 
Pierre Lefort. 

Half French, half native, he was of the worst type of 
Oriental. Eaten up with the vanity of the superficially edu¬ 
cated, but with a genuine, great knowledge of the Arabian 
horse and the obstreperous camel, the young man had 
managed to make himself seemingly indispensable to Sir 
Richard on his expeditions. Helen became accustomed to 
great distances and solitude, and her eyes gained the 
steadfast look of those who look upon the sky as the roof 
of their dwelling, whilst her unfailing sense of humour 
invariably brought her safely through the most trying 
ordeals. 

Diplomatically feeling her way through the barbed 
wire entanglement of her grandfathers testiness, she 




72 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


gained a great influence over the brilliant man and, know¬ 
ing how he chafed against the authoritative methods and 
manner of the government official, had dropped the sug¬ 
gestion in his all-willing ear of taking a busman’s holiday 
—a holiday expedition with the object of trying to find 
out the whereabouts of the legendary water in the great 
Red Desert, the discovery of which had become almost 
an obsession with him, since the day he had read the 
vellum inscribed by the Holy Palladius. 

They had spent the hot-weather months in getting 
ready for the expedition, helped enthusiastically by every 
member of the staff excepting Pierre Lefort who, loving 
the dregs of the European society he frequented in the 
cities and the corners of the Bazaar to which he rightly 
belonged, had made use of every means in his power to 
frustrate their endeavours. 

He had sworn to an epidemic amongst the camels and 
dromedaries in Arabia proper, which was causing them 
to die by hundreds; to an absolute dearth of camel 
drivers, owing to the terror the men had of the animals’ 
disease; to the truth of the terrible tales that had lately 
come to hand of the activities of a notorious robber gang, 
led by a woman, which swooped down from nowhere upon 
unwary travellers; that, in consequence of this band of 
brigands, neither guide nor servant could be procured for 
love or money on the other side, and that last, but not 
least, no man had ever been known to penetrate, even a 
little way, into the empty desert and to return alive. 

Each of his objections had been met; the expedition, 
down to the smallest detail, carefully mapped out; the 
date for the start fixed and the camp pitched some fifty 
miles out of Ismailiah. Pierre Lefort would doubtlessly, 
if sullenly, have accompanied the party for the sake of the 
monetary gain, if he had not fallen a victim to the wiles of 
a daAcer in the Bazaar. 

Had ensued a heated scene between him and Sir Richard • 
which had ended by the latter taking him by the collar of 


73 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

the coat and impelling 1 him, none too gently, back upon 
the road towards Xsmailiah. 

Since then a week had passed, which Sir Richard had 
spent in racing, as fast as swiftest camel could take him, 
into Ismailiah, there to interview men with a knowledge 
of camels and horses, and racing back to tell his grand¬ 
daughter of the blanks he had drawn. 

There remained another fortnight in which to find 
someone endowed with camel and horse sense, and Helen 
had just fled the camp after a trying scene with her dis¬ 
tracted and pessimistic relative. 

“Grandads,” she had said, after the recital of the latest 
failure, “X have an idea, although it’s only a faint-hope 
kind of idea.” 

“Well!” had snapped Grandads, who was ready to take 
his ships of the desert into almost any kind of a port to 
protect himself from the storm of failure which threat¬ 
ened to burst. 

“X think you are making a great mountain out of 
your mole-hill.” 

“Meaning?” 

“Lefort. There are others who understand as much 
about horses as he does. X do—for one—almost—and 
so does Abdul, who did all the spadework under him. Let 
me be vet, with Abdul for head groom and-” 

“Wh-a-a-t?” Sir Richard had sprung from his canvas 
chair with a bound which would have done credit to a 
jerboa , or kangaroo rat. “You! In charge of the horses 
—you—and what do you know of camels, may X ask?” 

“As much, dearest, as anybody, which amounts to 
nothing. If it’s sick, it usually makes up its obstinate 
mind to die, so there’s no use worrying about that; if you 
want to get an extra hour of work out of it, you give it a 
most noisome lump of barley-meal and w r ater, and add a 
cupful of whisky if you want to make it waltz; if you 
want it to go to the right, touch it on the left, and vice 
versa, and if it’s out on a non-stop run, hang your coat 




74 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


over its head to pull it up. It will go for six days in the 
summer and, I believe, ten in the winter without a drink, 
and is warranted to eat everything it comes across; in 
fact, I saw Mahli making breakfast off your oldest pair 
of night slippers this very morning.” 

All that she had said was true. She was a magnificent 
horsewoman, and there was mighty little she did not 
know about horses; in fact, up to her fifteenth birthday 
she had unequally divided her time between her lessons and 
her horses, to the decided detriment of the former; then, 
upon the death of her mother, had entreated to be allowed 
to accompany her grandfather to Egypt. He, unprac¬ 
tical in everything that did not concern the finding of 
water in desert places, had consented, and, acting upon 
some motherly soul’s advice, offered directly they had 
arrived in Cairo, had pushed her promptly under the 
sheltering wings of the Misses Cruikshanks. 

But she might as well have pleaded with the Great 
Pyramid this night of stars as she had sat, just outside 
the tent, with her beautiful head against the canvas 
whilst her distracted kinsman had figuratively rent his 
raiment in wrath. 

“You!” he had cried. “What authority would you 
have over the pack of rapscallions who look after the 
shameless beasts called camels, any one of which, in the 
eyes of the average Mohammedan, is of a hundred times 
more value than a woman? I know all about woman’s 
rights in England, but let me tell you that that means 
nothing, absolutely less than nothing out here, where she 
is not even allowed to possess a soul of her own, much less 
a vote. No! if I can’t find a man to fill the post, I will 
resign myself to having failed, throw up my position in 
the Irrigation Department, and take to bee-keeping in 
England.” 

And Helen Raynor, who firmly believed that if a thing 
is to happen it happens, and that nothing can prevent it 
from happening, also vice versa , had ridden some miles 


75 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

out into the silence, where she had hobbled her mare and 
sat down upon the hummock to think things over. She 
sat facing the direction in which Ismailiah lay, sat quite 
still, until the peacefulness of the desert seemed to enfold 
her and to wipe out the memory of the past weeks, 
which had gone far to disturb the tranquillity she so loved 
to bring into the daily life of the camp. She looked all 
round in utter content and lifted her face to the stars and 
listened to the great silence, unbroken now, even by the 
love song, then sat forward and stared in the direction of 
Ismailiah. 

Great is the solitude of the desert, with no sign of 
life in it at all; haunting is its solitude when, in the far 
distance, a solitary figure moves slowly across the limit¬ 
less sands. 

It is the most perfect illustration of the little span 
of life granted each of us upon this earth. 

Out of seeming nothing, remote, alone, the figure ap¬ 
proaches, growing clearer and clearer to the watching 
eye; maybe for a space he stops and raises his head to 
the star-strewn sky, or maybe he passes on, heedless of 
God’s thoughts about him; even if he stays it will be but 
for a brief second before he continues his journey, grow¬ 
ing dimmer and dimmer until he passes out of sight, 
alone, into apparent nothingness. 

Helen Raynor sat watching a solitary figure as it came 
slowly towards her from a far distance, and pressed her 
hand upon her heart, troubled by the biblical picture, 
the silence, the unknown. 

So might Abraham have looked in his youth, or Job 
before affliction fell upon him, or Boaz, or David, for the 
desert has not changed since their days, nor has the camel 
learned to hasten its pace or to alter the insolence of 
its gait. The night breeze died away suddenly and the 
flowers born of it faded, leaving a path, marked in grey 
and silver as though the tide had but just receded from 
it, for the passage of the camel’s feet, which were suddenly 


76 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


urged to a swift trot by its rider, who rode bareheaded 
and wrapped in a burnous. 

When about a mile off Ralph Trenchard raised his hand 
above his head in salutation to the figure he could see 
sitting on the hummock, and urged his camel quicker still, 
then pulled it to a halt and sat and stared at the girl, 
who looked like some silver statue under the light of the 
stars; then slipped to the ground instead of bringing 
the beast to its knees, hobbled it, dropped the white cloak, 
and followed the beckoning finger of Love, whom he could 
not see for the beauty of the girl, along the path which 
had been marked for him to tread even before the days 
of Abraham. 

And Helen Raynor rose and walked towards him, hold¬ 
ing out her hand, so that they neared each other and met 
yet again, as those who truly love do meet down the ages, 
and w r ill meet, until in perfect understanding they be¬ 
come one perfect spirit which will not be divided even by 
the short-lived dream of death. 

“I seem to know you so well, 5 * said Ralph Trenchard 
quietly. 

u And I you. I have seen you—I recognize the scar 
across your temple.” Helen Raynor pressed her hand 
against her forehead in an effort to capture the elusive 
memory which had suddenly flitted through her mind. 
“I cannot remember. I-” 

“My name is Ralph Trenchard, and my business in 
Egypt one of pleasure. I was riding out into the desert 
to be alone at sunrise.” 

She shook her head and looked about her and up to the 
stars and into the eyes of the man who had come to her 
out of the night, and yet not as a stranger; and she looked 
frankly at the lean, handsome face with the powerful jaw 
and humorous mouth, and smiled into the quiet grey eyes, 
and made a movement with her hand towards the oasis. 

“I cannot remember where I have seen you, but will 
you not come to our camp and have some coffee? I would 



ZARAH THE CRUEL 77 

not keep you from your ride, but my grandfather will, I am 
sure, be delighted to meet you. I am-” 

“Of course!” broke in Ralph Trenchard, as he stooped 
to remove the hobble from the mare, who danced sideways 
at the smell of camel which permeated the new-comer. 
“You must be Miss Raynor. Everybody is talking about 
the danger of the expedition you are starting out on; 
they don’t seem to see the other side, the privilege of 
searching for something which has been lost for centuries, 
the joy of adventuring into a new country.” 

They walked across to the camel, which stretched its 
neck and made a vicious snap at the mare, who immedi¬ 
ately retaliated by lashing out at the contemptuous 
face. 

“Quiet, you brute!” said Ralph Trenchard, as he re¬ 
moved the hobble, whereupon the said brute turned its 
hideous head and winked at him in hearty friendliness. 
“There is one thing I really do pride myself upon, Miss 
Raynor, though perhaps I ought not to, as it may only 
be the result of a certain brotherhood in sheer mule-headed 
obstinacy which I share with the quadruped.” 

“And what is it?” 

“The way I can manage camels. They seem absolutely 
to love me before my face, whatever they feel behind my 
back. I can do almost anything I like with them.” 

Helen Raynor walked close up to him and laid her hand 
upon his sleeve. 

“Tell me,” she said eagerly, “where are you going to 
after you leave Egypt?” 

“Well, I have been trying to make up my mind. I’m 
just down from Oxford, and am having a look round the 
old places before settling down to manage the estate 
which came to me when the dear old governor died a few 
months ago. I was born out here, lived here until I was 
ten. My people were stationed out here all over the place. 
Mother is buried in Khartoum. I love the country, and 
speak the language like a native. I don’t mind much 




78 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


where I go, but I do wish I could have one jolly good 
adventure when I get there.” 

“Come,” said Helen, her beautiful teeth flashing in a 
delighted smile, “I’m more convinced than ever that my 
grandfather will be delighted to meet you.” 


CHAPTER VI 


“Neither with thine eyes hast thou seen, nor with thine 
heart hast thou loved .”— Arabic Proverb. 

Zarah the Cruel leaned back in her ivory chair, staring un- 
seeingly at the men she ruled. She frowned and stretched 
her arms and played with the crystal knobs until her 
jewelled fingers looked like the claws of some great cat, 
whilst the men glanced at each other as they watched the 
movement which, they knew, heralded the conception of 
some new idea or plan in the girl’s masterly, unscrupulous 
brain. 

She had reigned for a year in her father’s stead, and 
the tales of her cruelty, her infamy and treachery had 
spread from Damascus to Hadramut, from Oman to the 
Red Sea. In the days of her father the wealthy only 
had been in danger of the gang’s predatory attacks; the 
humbler caravan had been certain of a safe journey and 
a sure arrival at its destination; the needy, just as sure 
of help in money or in kind from the man who quietened 
his conscience by robbing the one to assist the other, whilst 
keeping the best part of the spoil for himself and his men. 

His daughter attacked all and sundry, and as much for 
the love of the fight as in the hope of gain, meting out 
dire punishment to those w r ho fought to the last, and, if 
taken prisoner, lacked deep enough purse or strong enough 
sinew to pay or work their way back to freedom. 

With the exception of Yussuf the men obeyed her and 
literally fought for the place of honour at her right 
hand when she led them to the attack. 

The whole Peninsula rang with the tales of the mysteri¬ 
ous, beautiful woman of the desert. Women used her name 
as a bogy with which to frighten their children, men looked 

79 


80 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


at each other before they spoke of their affairs and then 
said but little. Her spies were everywhere, from Damas¬ 
cus to Cairo, from Jiddah to Bagdad, watching the move¬ 
ments and learning the whereabouts of wealthy people. 
The cities made great effort to discover the channels 
through which the almost legendary woman gained her 
information, sending out spy to counter spy, with the 
result that some were found in the holes and corners of 
the Bazaars at dawn, knifed through the back, and others, 
who had been sent to find out the lay of the land round 
and about the Sanctuary, buried up to their necks in the 
sands, dead, with the letter Z cut upon their foreheads. 

With a view to spreading reports of her beauty, her 
riches, and her power, she allowed some of the prisoners 
to return to their homes without payment of ransom; 
others disappeared leaving no trace, whilst many, whole¬ 
heartedly, threw in their lot with the band, working as 
grooms to the horses and dogs, as tenders to the cattle, 
as servants or labourers, marrying the women who 
looked after the comforts of the strange community; 
all of them happy in a freedom they could not have 
realized elsewhere, .}^et terror-stricken by their mistress, 
who ordered the severest punishments for the most trifling 
mistake. 

Built in terraces as had been the ancient monastery, 
the servants’ quarters stretched up the eastern side of the 
mountains, hidden by the jutting wall of rock from the 
western side where Zarah lived, alone. The walls of the 
monastery remained, but the interior of the buildings 
had been changed out of all recognition. Where once 
her father had lived, with his friend Yussuf, in all the 
simplicity of those who belong to the desert, the girl 
lived in barbaric luxury, the presence of Yussuf the 
only cloud upon what seemed otherwise to be a clear 
horizon. 

Of love she would have none. 

Those who had succumbed to the tales of her beauty. 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


81 


her wealth and her power, and who were willing' to risk 
much through greed, sent emissaries, laden with many 
gifts, to negotiate for her hand in marriage. They would 
be met far out in the desert, and, blindfolded, led across 
the quicksands and into the presence of the mysterious 
woman. She received them right royally, feted them, 
laughed at them in secret, and sent them back to their 
masters, with her own gifts added to those she had re¬ 
jected. 

She did not attempt to conquer her love for Ralph 
Trenchard; she did not want to; she hugged close the 
pain it caused her pride, and had sent spies to Egypt in 
an endeavour to trace him. A report came that he had 
landed at Port Said. After that, silence. 

She was thinking of him as she lay back in the chair 
watching the men, gathered at her command, in the Hall 
of Judgment. Upon the first of every three months she 
called a council, with the object of making plans for the 
months succeeding. Those of the men who could, hurried 
from every part of the Peninsula to the gathering. A 
week of festival invariably followed the great day, during 
which sports were held and much wine drunk, in direct 
disobedience to the law laid down by Mohammed, the 
Prophet of Allah the one and only God. Those of the 
men who could not attend, and who were mostly those 
who had failed in the task set them, sent in reports of 
their work by safe messenger. 

The spy who had reported the arrival of Ralph 
Trenchard at Port Said had not appeared in person, 
nor sent in further report, so that Zarah sat a prey to 
a great anger, which increased every moment under the 
goad of suspense and uncertainty, and craved for a victim 
upon which to vent herself. 

The business of the hour, with its reports and repri¬ 
mands, suggestions, punishments and rewards, had been 
concluded, and the men waited, eager to draw out a 
programme for the week of festival; they looked at their 


82 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


despotic ruler, raised above them on a dais, as she lay 
back in her chair sullenly regarding them out of half- 
closed eyes; they murmured amongst themselves but, under 
the spell of her beauty, murmured only. 

She made an arresting Eastern picture outlined against 
an enormous fan of peacocks’ feathers, which spread on 
each side and above her. It glowed vividly against the 
south wall of the hall, which had been covered in Byzan¬ 
tine gold leaf, outlined by an arabesque design carved out 
in rough lumps of turquoise matrix, agate, jasper, onyx, 
and different coloured marble. 

Seven jewelled lamps, hanging above her head by golden 
chains, were reflected in the polished surface of the huge 
dais hewn out of one great block of black granite, up 
which she ascended by seven steps carved to represent 
seven crouching lions. 

Skins of wild beasts were thrown upon a mosaic floor 
which replaced the rough stones laid down by the Holy 
Fathers. It had been set by skilled Italian workmen, taken 
prisoners as they returned from Bagdad, where they had 
been sent to set the famous mosaic floor in the house of 
the Eastern potentate, who is almost as famous as his 
flooring. 

The Italians had won back their freedom by promising 
to outrival the beauty of this floor in Bagdad, and, hav¬ 
ing fulfilled the promise, had returned, laden with gifts 
and well content, to their own country. The pillars 
of palm trees had been removed and replaced by others 
of stone, inlaid roughly with uncut turquoise matrix, 
jasper and agate, which reflected the light of the jewelled 
lamps hanging from the roof. The flat roof, which the 
dead Sheikh had considered good enough as a covering, 
had been removed and replaced by another, vaulted, 
painted the colour of the night sky and powdered with 
silvery stars. It showed misty, this night, above the 
smoke of torches held above their heads by thirty prisoners 
who stood upon the stools once used as seats by the Holy 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 83 

Fathers, pushed back against the walls hung with curtains 
of purple velvet. 

Informed that one movement meant instant death, 
prisoners awaiting sentence would be ordered to hold 
lighted torches above their heads whilst the Arabian 
girl sat discussing the events of the day or merely idling 
away time watching the men wrestling or gambling, in 
which last pastime she frequently joined. 

Men meant nothing to her, but her overwhelming vanity 
caused her to change her raiment many times a day and 
to smother herself in jewels. 

This night her slender limbs showed through volumi¬ 
nous trousers made of some semi-transparent material, 
woven by her women slaves, and caught at the ankles by 
bands of gold inlaid with precious stones; her body, save 
for breast-plates blazing in jewels, was bare, and showed 
like white satin in the light of the torches and the 
lamps above her head; her hands glittered with precious 
stones, her arms were bare, and a broad gold band set 
in diamonds bound her head, confining the thick, red 
curls. 

She sat alone, furious, tortured, her sandalled feet 
upon an ivory footstool, her strange eyes flashing from 
one side of the hall to the other in an endeavour to find 
an outlet for her wrath. 

She scrutinized the twenty men and ten women of 
Damascus who had been captured on their way to Bagdad 
with a precious load of steel weapons, and smiled as she 
glanced from their leader, a fine old man with white hair 
and beard and flowing robes, to the girl, his grand¬ 
daughter, at his side, and on to the young men and women 
who had gained a world-wide reputation through their 
work of inlaying steel with gold. 

With the fear of death, the one for the other, they had 
stood throughout the whole evening, motionless, save when 
slaves replaced the burnt-out torches; but a shiver swept 
them, and a smile of satisfaction lit the faces of the men 


84 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


in the body of the hall when the old man swayed, then 
crashed to the ground with a cry. 

Zarah sat upright, her eyes gleaming, her jewels flash¬ 
ing, whilst the men looked from her to the prostrate 
man and back. 

“Get up!” she cried, too intent upon her enjoyment 
of the moment to notice that her enemy Yussuf had en¬ 
tered the hall, standing, a menacing figure, against the 
wall. “Get up!” she repeated, “lest I give orders to have 
thee thrown from the rocks so that thou standest for 
eternity upon thy head in the quicksands.” 

A shout of laughter rang out at the words, and ceased 
as Zarah sprang up, white with rage. 

The old man’s granddaughter, flinging her torch to 
the far end of the hall, where it fell at Yussuf’s feet, sprang 
to the floor and, kneeling, gathered the old man into her 
arms. 

“He shall not be touched! He shall not be touched!” 
she cried, looking fearlessly up at Zarah, who stood at 
the edge of the dais, looking down. “Shameless art thou, 
woman, in thy cruelty! Shameless in thy nakedness! 
Shameless in all thy ways! If this old man, my father’s 
father, be thrown from the rocks, then thou must throw 
me also, for naught but death shall unclasp my arms 
from about him. Nay! thou shalt not touch him, thou 
shalt not , I say.” 

She bent down over the old man as Zarah ran down 
the steps and caught her by the shoulder. The men 
gathered in a circle round the two women, watching the 
one who shook with rage and the other who looked up fear¬ 
lessly, strong in her protecting love. 

“Seize them, all of them!” commanded Zarah, “and-” 

She stopped dead and looked towards the door, through 
which a man came, running at full speed. Zarah turned 
and, mounting the steps, sat down in the ivory chair, 
holding up her hand until silence reigned. 

“Hither,” she said curtly, and watched the spy, who 



ZARAH THE CRUEL 


8.5 


had reported upon Ralph Trenchard’s doings, with no 
gentle look in her eyes as he hastened across the floor. 

6i ’Tis well indeed, O my brother, that thou hasteneth 
thy feet at last. Perchance the delights of the great city 
prevented thee from keeping the hour of council to which 
thou wast summoned.” 

The man flung himself upon his knees before the dais, 
then sprang to his feet. 

“Thy servant tarried so as to bring good news.” 

“Good news! ’Tis indeed well for thee that the news 
is good. Speak!” 

“The white man with a scar upon his forehead is even 
now upon his way—here!” 

“Here!” 

“Yea! Here! He crosses the water in the company 
of another man, white, but of great age. They travel, 
O my mistress, they travel, O my brethren, in search of 
the miraculous water which, so ’tis said, is hidden in the 
heart of certain mountains in the Red Desert.” 

Laughter rang out, in which Zarah joined, the sweet 
sound mingling with the men’s deep voices as they shouted 
grim suggestions and coarse pleasantries the one to the 
other. 

Zarah leant forward, her eyes gleaming. 

“They come alone, the two white men, in search of 
this miraculous water?” 

“Nay, O mistress! They travel in a good company 
of men and camels, led by a woman-” 

“Led by a woman! O my brethren, is there one of thee 
in need of a wife or yet another wife?” 

Ribald laughter and obscene jest followed close upon 
her question. 

“What is she like? this woman who dares lead men and 
camels across the empty desert.” 

“She is as the heavens at sunrise when the light wraps 
the world in softest colouring. Her eyes are the blue of 
the night in which shines the morning star, her mouth 



86 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


as the sun-kissed pomegranate, her teeth as shimmering 
pearls. Her hair! The houris which wait in paradise 
to reward the faithful have not such hair as she. It is 
as the web of the spider gilded by the sunlight, as the 
corn glowing in the noon-day sun, and, in its wayward¬ 
ness, twineth about the heart of men as a child’s fingers 
about the mother’s breast.” 

The men secretly touched each other as they watched 
the effect of the man’s words upon the woman who ruled 
them with no gentle hand. Thrones built upon a founda¬ 
tion of consideration towards others are rocky enough 
at any time, but there is absolutely no security for the 
monarch who uses his sceptre as a stick with which to 
drive his subjects. 

Zarah sat back in her chair, too primitive in her love 
to try to hide the jealousy which consumed her. 

“Who is she and what position does she hold in the 
expedition?” 

“She rules men, O mistress, and is the granddaughter 
of the aged one.” 

“His name?” 

“It taketh a twisted tongue, O mistress, to pronounce 
it. I have essayed and failed. He is a great Sheikh from 
Inglistan , the land where, ’tis said, the heavens drop water 
without ceasing. His men are well armed; his camels, 
over which devil-possessed animal the white man with a 
scar has a strange control, are of the best; his men con¬ 
tent, and averse to speech with strangers. They have 
started; a great caravan awaits them at the port of 
Jiddah; I hastened by swiftest camel to bring thee the 
news.” 

Zarah sat silent for a moment, then called the names 
of six of her most trusted and unscrupulous followers, 
and sharply ordered the hall to be cleared for the space of 
one hour. 

“And the Damascenes, mistress?” asked Al-Asad, who 
had mounted the dais at his mistress’s call and stood, 


87 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

gigantic, powerful, behind her, ready to do her bidding- 

Zarah frowned. 

Jealousy might torture, but hope and an abnormal 
vanity lay as balm upon the wounds. She had no time 
for the trivial occupation of finding a punishment be¬ 
fitting the crime of the prisoners. She had called her six 
most trusted servants with a view to making plans for 
the capture of the entire party, headed by the beautiful 
woman -with the unpronounceable name. 

Time pressed. 

Let her but make a prisoner of the white man who had 
held her in his arms, subject him to her wiles, her beauty, 
and surround him with all the evidence of her great 
wealth, then what would she have to fear of any woman 
where love was concerned! 

“Al-Asad!” 

He knelt and touched her foot. 

“They beg their freedom, those thirty fools. Their free¬ 
dom they shall have! Lead them safely over the path, 
then whip them out into the desert to find their way back 
across the road by which they came. The desert is free 
to all—to man as well as to beasts of prey and carrion 
birds. They have asked for liberty and naught else; bid 
them begone with empty hands.” 

But there was no fear in the heart of the girl who had 
leapt to aid the old man when he fell; she ran forward 
to the very foot of the dais and called down curses upon 
the woman above her, cursed her until the hall rang with 
the terrible words and the superstitious men drew back 
in fear. 

“. . . and thou shalt be driven into the desert, O woman 
without heart,” she ended, “and death shall find thee 
bereft of power and love. Thou shalt leave thy beauty to 
the jackals and the scorpions shall nest in thine eyes and 
thy hair.” A speck of foam appeared at the corners of her 
mouth as she prophesied with the vision of the East. 
“I see thee pursuing, I see thee pursued, I see dogs upon 


88 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


thy track, and one, whose light cometh from wdthin to 
lighten his darkness, hard upon thy heels, hunting thee. 
I-” 

She laughed shrilly, pointing at Zarah, who made a 
quick movement of the hand. Al-Asad sprang down and, 
seizing the girl by the throat, hurled her backwards, whilst 
the rest of the prisoners, with hope eternal to spur them, 
ran from one to the other, until at last, with the girl and 
the old man in the centre, they marched* boldly from the 
hall, with the gigantic half-caste harrying them in the 
rear. 

Whispered words fell upon the ears of Almana, the 
gentle Damascene, as she paused to allow those in front 
to pass through the door out into the night. She turned 
for a moment and looked up into Yussuf’s blinded face as 
he stood near her in the shadows. 

“Put thy trust in Allah and hasten not. Journey 
westward and stop and wait. He will save thee and 
thine.” 

He had caught the sound of the girl’s voice as she 
passed, encouraging the old man, and risked his life to 
tell her of the help that awaits those w r ho put their trust 
in a higher power. 

She whispered her thanks as she passed on, and in such 
wise did love come to Yussuf, the blind, and Almana, the 
Damascene. 

* * * 0 * 

Zarah sat in council with all her men; the women and 
children and servants slept, so that there were no eyes 
to watch, nor ears to hear Yussuf as he passed silently 
amongst the rocks to the paddock where the camels were 
herded at night, hobbled or tied to posts to prevent them 
from fighting, as is the custom of the brutes when together 
in great numbers. 

He passed his hands over the animals, choosing three, 
then crossed to a shed in which were piled the “ gliakeet ” 
and “shedad ” the saddles used for riding or baggage 



ZARAH THE CRUEL 


89 


camels, with water skins and sacks of dates, the emergency 
rations required by an Arab for a sudden journey. 

Surely Allah, the one and only God, watched over him 
and listened to his prayers when, later, he walked un¬ 
hesitatingly across the narrow path of rock, leading the 
first of three beasts, which followed, grumbling and snarl¬ 
ing, but obediently, from fear, and guided them by the 
sound of voices to the Damascenes. 

Almana ran to meet him wdien he rode towards them 
out of the night, and led him to her grandfather, who 
rose and blessed him. 

“Come with us, my son, for surely yon place in the 
mountains is the dwelling-place of devils. Come with us 
to Damascus.” 

“I will come one day when my task is accomplished, 
and that will be in the time appointed, O father,” replied 
Yussuf, raising his head and turning towards the East 
as the wind of dawn swept his face. 

The Damascenes lifted their voices in prayer, calling 
down blessings upon him as he mounted his camel and rode 
away into the glory of the sunrise. 

“How sad,” Almana whispered to her grandfather as 
they watched him moving swiftly towards the mountains, 
and “His Eyes” who rode to meet him. “How sad that 
he should be blind.” 

“He is not blind, my daughter,” replied the old man, 
as he laid his hand upon her head. “There are those 
who see by the light of the soul, and, verily, our protector 
is numbered among them.” 


CHAPTER VII 


“If the moon he with thee thou need’st not mind about the 
stars ”— Arabic Proverb. 

The desert is the cradle of love! 

The love of God or the love of solitude, or the love 
which seeks its soul-mate and finds it, in the immensity 
of the sands. There is no room for doubt in the minds 
of those who love and who pass their days together in 
the desert’s great spaces. If the love is that which en- 
dureth, which floods cannot drown nor many waters 
quench, which looks ever towards the horizon where the 
light is born heralding the day, then will the desert be as 
a book filled with much wisdom; a book in which the hand¬ 
writing is visible only to those who radiate the love which 
sees the mountain peak above the swirl of mist; the truth 
of the dream in which, blindly, we stumble and fall, until 
enlightenment comes to us so that we rise once more and 
reach the end of the road at last. 

The desert is a background against which love blazes as 
a torch or shines with the glimmer of the rushlight; a 
journey into it either fills the mind with the wonder of 
God or overwhelms the traveller, when the novelty has 
passed, with a crushing sense of boredom; the sunset, the 
sunrise, and the stars are either the thoughts of the 
Creator, or merely a means by which to mark the passing 
of the endless hours; whilst the stillness, silence, and far 
horizon teach life’s wayfarers the stupendous lesson of 
Eternity or fill the gregarious globe-trotter with a deep 
longing for the noise and bustle of great cities. 

For the westerner there are no half-way measures in 
the desert. 


90 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


91 


He may have been born in the glamour of the East 
and have lived the best part of his life with the vast 
stretches of sand around him, and yet have heard no voice 
calling in the noonday, nor seen the slender hand beckon¬ 
ing in the shadows of dawn and dusk. He may come 
from the counting-house upon holiday bent, with guide 
book in hand and passage booked for the return journey 
to the city, yet see the spirit of the desert, remote, mys¬ 
terious, beckoning him out of all the merry, personally 
conducted crowd. 

He will either follow the beckoning figure with hungry 
heart until he falls, to die, clutching at its robes which 
slip ever from between his fingers, or he will return to 
the counting-house to pass his life in a great longing 
which will never be appeased. 

In either case, he will have answered the call of the 
desert to his own undoing . 1 

Helen Raynor and Ralph Trenchard sat looking out 
across the Robaa-el-Khali, or Empty Desert, or the Red 
Desert, as it is called by the Arabs on account of the 
colour of its sands. 

She sat with her hand in his, watching the strange 
effect the wind from the north has upon this desert, which 
rolls away to the horizon in great, sandy ridges, and of 
which no one has explored the heart. When this wind 
blows gently, it skims the surface of the great ridges and 
lifts the topmost layer of the sand, carrying it down into 
the hollows and up on to the crests for mile after mile, 
until the desert looks like an ocean of great, glittering 
billows surging towards the distant horizon. 

“The sky seems to be covered with a transparent, 
diamond-encrusted veil,” whispered Helen, as she lifted 
her face to the moon, and smiled when the man she loved 
drew her to him and kissed her. 

1 Instances have been known where Europeans have ridden out 
into the desert upon seeing it for the first time, and have not been 
seen or heard of since. 


92 


ZATLAH THE CRUEL 


“It is the effect of the sand in the air, beloved,” lie 
whispered, “under the moon which shines for all 
lovers.” 

“Look at that wave out there”—she pointed to the 
east as she spoke—“breaking into spray. How wonder¬ 
ful—how wonderful it all is, Ra!” 

“I expect a big rock lies just there, beloved, if we 
could only see it, so that the sand is blown against it 
and higher into the air. How I love the name you have 
given me, dearest; it seems to belong to the country where 
I found you waiting for me, all those months ago, alone, 
in the desert, under a moon like this.” 

“I really expect it was the same moon, Ra; it is only 
we who have moved,” laughed Helen softly. “Yes, I 
think your nickname suits you; it’s strong, with the 
strength of dead Egypt, like you, with your tremendous 
will power which can even dominate the camel.” 

They laughed as they talked of the long journey with 
its scenes and contretemps, during which Ralph Trenchard 
had had to exercise every bit of will power and every scrap 
of patience he possessed, so as to triumph over the splendid 
camels which composed the caravan, and which had 
aroused admiration and no little jealousy in the hearts 
of the inhabitants of the different villages they had passed 
through, from the Port of Jiddah to Hutah in the Oasis 
of Hareek. 

“Do you remember when Mahli ate Grandad’s best 
tussore coat and pretended to die, and then, suddenly, 
got to her feet and rushed at you, because you offered 
Duria a whole lump of dates and took no notice of her 
in her tantrums?” 

“Sheer jealousy and greed, sweetheart. I believe no 
woman who loved could be as jealous, or as vindictive, 
as a female camel in a rage. Look straight ahead, be¬ 
loved ; can you see something moving through the waves ?” 

Helen sat forward and stared due south. 

“Yes, I think—I do. Yes, it looks like mounted men.” 


93 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

She shivered suddenly and turned and caught her lover by 
the arm. “Ra! I’m frightened.” 

“Frightened! Dear heart, what at?” 

“I don’t know—I don’t really know. I just felt a 
tremendous premonition of danger. Ah! look, they’ve 
gone. I wonder who they were? So near us, yet taking 
no notice of our big camp with its fires and its white tents.” 

“Yes. I wonder!” 

If only he had known it, they were the advance guard 
of a woman who was to show him that there is no jealousy 
or vindictiveness to equal that of a woman whose love is 
not returned. 

They sat silently, looking out across the sandy ocean 
until they could no longer see the phantom figures moving 
eastwards in the far distance; then they talked of the 
journey behind them and the enterprise ahead. 

To gain full control over the staff and, as much as is 
humanly possible, over the animals, Ralph Trenchard 
had preceded Sir Richard and his granddaughter, land¬ 
ing in Jiddah a month before them. Death by thirst, 
exhaustion or violence being a recognized risk to be taken 
by those who travel off the beaten track in Arabia, he 
had intensely disliked the idea of Helen Raynor accom¬ 
panying the expedition; had argued the question; pointed 
out the dangers; emphasized the added responsibility her 
safekeeping would entail, insisting upon the intense dis¬ 
comfort she would have to endure, only to find himself 
up against the mule-headed obstinacy for which Sir 
Richard was famous. 

He had resigned himself to the inevitable at last and 
had discovered, after one week spent in the company 
of the camels and their drivers, that for nothing on earth 
would he undertake the excursion into the unknown, unless 
she took it with him, riding at his side. He knew that love 
had come to him that night when he had seen her sitting 
on a hummock of sand, alone in the desert under the 
moon; he knew r that that love had come to possess him 


94 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


utterly when he had succumbed to the entreaties of Sir 
Richard to join the expedition; but he had not known 
how much he really loved her, or what she really meant 
to him, until he had been separated from her for weeks. 

He had counted the days, the hours, the minutes, and 
then, jubilantly, thankfully, had rushed down to meet the 
boat Sir Richard had chartered, as she docked, and happy 
beyond telling, had started out on the foolhardy enter¬ 
prise, with Helen at his side. 

There is nothing so calculated to make life-long friends 
or sworn enemies of two people, as a long journey on 
camels and surrounded by camels. A trip into the desert 
on camelback for so much an hour, or day, is vastly 
romantic, causing you to feel one with Pharaoh or 
Queen Hatshepu, Abraham or Jezebel, according to your 
sex. It’s ten to one you write an ode to the Sphinx 
or the Pyramids or the Voice of the Past as you sit 
on the sand, smoking your Simon Artz; it’s certain that 
your camel driver tots up the different items of your toilet 
in an endeavour to hit upon the right amount of extra 
baachseesch he may extract from you, whilst wishing to 
goodness you’d get through with your foolishness and 
return to your comfortable, or otherwise, hotel; but it’s 
an altogether different thing when you make part of a 
caravan composed of the ill-mannered, ill-natured brutes. 
No matter how well they are handled, or how far you 
ride apart from their odorous bodies, you will never be 
able to count upon a moment’s peace as long as they are 
likely to panic for nothing, or fight for less, whilst filling 
the air with sounds that resemble the emptying of 
gigantic, narrow-necked bottles, nests of angry snakes, 
battalions of spitting cats, moans of incurable invalids 
and shrieks of insufferable children. 

They lie down or get up or refuse to move just as 
their hateful fancy dictates; they follow obediently one 
behind another, if in a string, or peacefully together, 
if in a herd, then stop dead and look on indifferently, 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


95 


whilst one, for no apparent reason whatever, reduces the 
patience of its driver to shreds and its pack to bits. 
Some drivers are cautious and hobble the lot at night, 
others take the risk and hobble the worst offenders; 
’twere, however, wise to be cautious so as to prevent one, 
suddenly possessed of the devil, from either clearing for 
the open with the gifts you intend for your host upon 
its offensive back, or from lifting the flap of your tent 
in the still watches of the night and, whilst taking a 
survey of your heat-disturbed person, banqueting off your 
boots. 

If your temper is not of the sort that can come out 
unruffled from ever-recurring and heated arguments with 
your companion and the distracted drivers; if your looks 
cannot withstand the long moments ’twixt heat of sand 
and sun and wrath, as you sit perched above the tur¬ 
moil upon the back of your own thrice-accursed beast, then 
’twere wise to give the desert an extremely wide berth. 
Lay down the law to your companion and he will learn 
to loathe the very sight of you; upbraid the long- 
suffering driver and he will league himself with the camel 
to spite you in every way; hit the camel so as to 
cause it pain, and you will never again feel any security 
about the welfare of your person. You won’t recognize 
that camel one or five or ten years hence as you saunter 
through some Bazaar, but it will recognize you all right, 
and will meet its teeth in the tenderest portion of your 
anatomy it can find, or, if it gets the chance, will seize, 
worry, and throw you and deliver the coup de grace of 
its long-waited-for revenge by rolling upon you until 
you are an unrecognizable pulp. 

Grin and bear with it all, and your servants and your 
camels, your companion and your days, will not appear 
so insufferably obnoxious or so outrageously long, in 
the land of the Pharaohs. 

The caravan was a big one on account of the multi¬ 
tude of gifts Sir Richard carried, with which to buy 



96 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


peace, if not plenty, as it journeyed from Jiddah, skirt¬ 
ing the territory sacred to the Holy City, down through 
the mountainous, fertile district of Taif and southwards 
along the Wady Dowasir, with its many villages, up to 
Hutah in the Oasis of Hareek, w r here commences the 
Great Desert. 

It is wise not to reckon altogether on gifts and a 
smattering of the language and courtesy to get you 
safely to your destination in Arabia, but, as they will 
take you many miles upon your journey, they should 
be looked upon as the chief items on your list of neces¬ 
sities—especially the last. 

Helen Raynor and the man she had learned to love in 
the distracting, ridiculous, mirth-provoking and aggra¬ 
vating incidents of the journey, laughed, as they looked 
back to the storms they had weathered safely, through 
love and a perfect sense of humour and comradeship, 
unwitting of the news about themselves which had been 
conveyed, in the mysterious manner of desert places, 
to Zarah the Cruel who had only waited to attack, with 
as much patience as she could muster, until the caravan 
should leave Hutah far behind and arrive at a certain 
spot between the Hareek mountains and those of the 
Jebel Akhaf. 

The north wind dropped suddenly whilst they talked 
in whispers, and with it the veil of sand it had spread 
across the heavens, leaving the desert desolate and 
formidable under the light of the full moon, save where 
the camp fires flung red and orange flames and trails 
of smoke across the silvery sheen. 

44 4 Even the grains of sand are numbered, neither 
can a sparrow fall unless He knows it.* 99 Helen quoted 
to herself as she stared out across the waste, then turned 
and put her hand in that of the man beside her who 
had been watching her and wondering at the anxious 
look upon her face. 

44 I feel crushed under a great weight of responsibility? 


97 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

Ra,” she said, speaking in a whisper induced by the fear 
that had suddenly fallen upon her at the sight of the 
phantoms in the distance. “I do wish I hadn’t suggested 
this hare-brained expedition to Grandad. I somehow 
never thought it would mean such a big undertaking and 
perhaps, after all, the water was only seen in a mirage 
by some exhausted pilgrims all those centuries ago.” 

Fearful for her, Ralph Trenchard fully agreed in his 
heart, but contradicted her in an effort to reassure her. 

“Oh! I don’t know, dearest. I don’t think you are 
in the least bit responsible. Your grandfather has been 
set on discovering this water ever since he read the 
document all those years ago, and if he hadn’t done it 
this year he would have done it later, and then I shouldn’t 
have been here to see you through, should IP” 

“No, of course you wouldn’t!” replied the girl, as 
she looked up into the handsome face. “If we hadn’t 
pitched our camp just outside Ismailiah, which we 
shouldn’t have done if we had not been starting on this 
adventure, you and I would not have met.” She touched 
the scar on his temple as she spoke, the look of trouble 
deepening in her eyes. “You laughed at me when I 
told you about the scene we had with Zarah, the Arabian 
girl, at school, when she said she saw herself on a moun¬ 
tain peak and me in the dust at her feet and a man with 
a scar upon his temple, coming towards her. But, you 
see, she did meet you and recognize you, and she came 
from somewhere about here, Ra, and I haven’t been able 
to get her out of my thoughts since we left Hutah. She 
hated me, Ra, hated me, and, as you know, I believe in 
the power of thought.” 

“So do I, beloved,” said Ralph Trenchard, putting 
his arms round her and holding her very close to his 
heart. “But no bad thought, no hate, malice or revenge 
can get through real, pure, everlasting love. It can 
rage, and storm, and threaten outside and make a con¬ 
siderable noise and kick up a tremendous amount of dust, 


98 ZARAH THE CRUEL 

but it can't touch the love inside a great fortress of 
trust." 

He laughed to reassure her as he watched the troubled 
look in the big, blue eyes which shone like stars. “Not 
that I don’t also rely upon my good right arm and 
trusty automatic when wandering in desert places. 
Besides, you must remember that she was fairly senseless 
when she dropped into my arms like an over-ripe plum 
from a tree, also, that the native is as crammed full of 
tricks as a monkey, and that I haven’t set eyes on her 
since.” 

But the girl was not to be so easily pacified. 

Gently submissive in the smaller events of everyday 
life, Helen Raynor invariably carried through any proj¬ 
ect she considered worth while, with a quiet determina¬ 
tion which, when opposed, developed into sheer strength 
of will; also, she had never been known to back out of 
a task she had been set, however disagreeable. 

“I can’t agree with you, Ra. I can’t help connecting 
her with the mysterious woman the men are continually 
talking about; the one who suddenly appears at the 
head of a gang of bandits, raids a caravan, and disap¬ 
pears as suddenly into the unknown. Of course, if I 
had known about this woman sooner nothing would have 
induced me to allow Grandad to undertake the trip. I’m 
not worrying about myself, but I am worrying about the 
two people I love most on earth, you and him.” She 
shivered uncontrollably as she looked out at the far 
horizon. “I hate this place, and if he wasn’t so ter¬ 
ribly obstinate I’d make him turn back, even now. What 
is the finding of hidden water in a desert compared with 
the lives of those I love so much?” 

Ralph Trenchard rose and stretched his hands out to 
her. 

“You are tired, darling, you do too much for our 
comfort, you never seem to rest, and I don’t like you 
sitting here without a wrap. It’s hot enough, goodness 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 99 

knows, but the wind from the north is not to be trifled 
with.” 

“Yes, I noticed that the men had their mouths covered 
after sunset. Let’s go and talk to Grandad, the darling 
is worrying himself to death because we got half a mile 
off our course to-day.” She looked up at Ralph Trench- 
ard. “How tall you are, how strong you look, Ra, I 
don’t think any harm can come to me whilst you are 
near.” 

He leaned and took her hands and pulled her up beside 
him. He stood over six feet; she was well above the 
medium height, with her head well set upon splendid 
shoulders. They seemed the embodiment of strength, 
with their steady eyes, and quiet movements, and soft 
voices, as they stood hand in hand alone under the great 
moon, little knowing that they would shortly be called 
upon to make use of every atom of physical and mental 
strength they possessed, so as to win through the terrible 
days ahead. 

“I am strong, beloved, and so are you, and together 
we will overcome every difficulty in our path.” 

“Together,” said Helen softly; “yes, together we can¬ 
not fail, and even if we were separated for a time we 
should still be together. Mentally and spiritually we 
are so one that no one and nothing can ever separate the 
real us. I—what’s that ?” 

There had come the sharp report of a rifle from 
some spot far ahead of them in the desert, followed im¬ 
mediately by the sound of a great disturbance in the 
camp. 

“Excellency! hasten thy footsteps,” cried a camel 
driver who ran to meet them as they hurried towards 
the camp. “ Eblis , the black devil, has possessed the 
senses of his offspring, the camels. Hobbled, they essay 
to flee back upon the path by which they have come; 
fallen, they fight where they lay until the ground is not 
a fit sight for the eyes of our lady. Hasten, Excellency; 


> 5 
o > > 


100 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


our master, full of wrath, calleth his Excellency’s name, 
with much groaning of spirit.” 

“My God!” exclaimed Ralph Trenchard a few minutes 
later as he stood looking at the camels. “How ghastly!” 

To rest both man and beast the camp had been pitched 
for a week near a well sunk many years ago by Arabs, 
beneath a clump of palm trees which, in its isolated fer¬ 
tility, they had recognized as the sure sign of water some¬ 
where beneath the surface. 

The camels had been unloaded so that the packs could 
be more evenly distributed and their backs attended to 
before starting on the last and most trying lap of the 
expedition; they had lain contentedly sprawling, or had 
stood as contentedly ruminating, as near the brackish 
well as they could get, until fear had swept through the 
whole herd. 

There is no explaining the fear which at any moment, in 
any place, will suddenly grip this most unimaginative and 
most stupid of all beasts. In the middle of a crowded 
thoroughfare, as when alone in the empty desert, it will 
stop for no reason whatever and begin to shiver, with head 
outstretched, eyes rolling, and forelegs planted wide as 
though to resist the onslaught of some unseen enemy. 

It is of no avail to kick or beat the terror-stricken 
creature, and for the following reason it is most unwise 
to approach too near its formidable mouth. It will 
stand and shiver until it comes to wellnigh dropping to 
its knees, and then, with a sudden quick movement of 
the long neck, will snap at something only visible to its 
eyes. The fear then passes, and, demoniacal rage filling 
the vacuum created by the passing of its fear, it will 
turn and savage the nearest object at hand, be it man 
or fellow-beast or inanimate substance, until, its wrath 
appeased, it proceeds calmly, indifferently upon its con¬ 
temptuous way. 

“Excellency! Excellency!” wailed Abdul, whose gar¬ 
ments hung in shreds* “Something which neither I nor 




ZARAH THE CRUEL 


101 


my brethren could see walked amongst them an hour ago. 
They became convulsed with fear of the unknown, Excel¬ 
lency, and shook in their terror, until some fell to the 
ground, and, being bound, remained there foaming at 
the mouth. Then, at the sound of firing, Eblis the 
devil entered their black hearts, and they fought, all 
of them, those that lay upon the ground biting at the 
dust, those that stood tearing the hair and flesh from 
each other’s back until the place runs with blood, as your 
Excellency sees. I have done my best, but neither I 
nor my brethren will take another step into this desert, 
which is the abiding place of all evil.” 

“I don’t blame them,” said Ralph Trenchard to him¬ 
self, when, having given orders for the tending of the 
wounded beasts, he went to report the mutiny to Sir 
Richard. 

“They won’t stir another yard, sir! at least, not for¬ 
ward, so we shall have to retrace our steps.” 

He rejoiced in his heart at the turn things had taken, 
without reckoning with the old man’s wall-headed obsti¬ 
nacy or the cupidity of the native. 

“Nonsense!” replied Sir Richard tersely, as he stalked 
off towards the mutineers, to return triumphantly ten 
minutes later. 

“We start when I said we’d start, my boy, in two 
days’ time, if the weather clears and the camels are 
fit,” he said as he entered his tent. “I’ve doubled their 
pay. Good night.” 

Ralph Trenchard walked to his own tent and beckoned 
Abdul. 

. . we are poor, very poor, Excellency,” the 
latter said, concluding his apologia. “We could not with¬ 
stand the money.” 

“Well, I’m sorry you gave in, on account of her Excel¬ 
lency your mistress, but it can’t be helped. Tell me 
what did that rifle shot mean?” 

Abdul spread his fingers to avert evil as he whispered: 





102 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


“That was a mistake, Excellency, on the part of those 
whose eyes watch us from afar.” 

“Whose eyes?” 

“Perchance those of the woman of mystery, of crime, 
of death.” 

Ralph Trenchard looked over his shoulder towards 
the tent of the woman he loved, then back at the man. 

“Tell the men to have their rifles ready, I am coming 
to inspect them,” he said abruptly, then turned away 
and stood looking out across the desert. 


CHAPTER VIII 


“A person sat demanding from God the rise of morn — 
when morn rose he became blind .”— Arabic Proverb. 

“I wish the stars could be seen,” Sir Richard said irri¬ 
tably, three nights later, as he looked up at the sky, across 
which hung a heavy purple cloud. Due to the intense 
heat, it obliterated the stars, thereby trying the patience 
of the old man to the uttermost. “This delay is simply 
abominable. To think, just to think, that this wind 
has been blowing for nearly a week, clouding the sky 
and blotting out the stars—the stars by which, if they 
could have been seen, I could have proved, absolutely 
proved, that we are camped upon the exact spot, between 
the mountains of Hareek and the Jebel Akhaf, from 
where the Holy Fathers turned due south. We could 
have followed in their footsteps, started to-night; think 
of it, could have started to-night, if only this wind hadn’t 
blown. What? Try to find out what the firing meant 
the other night? Nonsense, man, nonsense! We don’t want 
to go over all that again. Some Arab, a solitary one. 
Sound carries for miles, miles in the desert, the slightest 
sound* If you let a pin drop it could be almost heard in 
Hutah. Absurd! The thing to do is to get on” He 
spread out, with an angry slap, the copy he had made 
of the vellum inscribed by the Holy Palladius, and read 
out the Latin words by the light of an electric torch. 
“It absolutely tallies,” he cried enthusiastically. “You 
see, ab-so-lutely tallies! Another week, perhaps a little 
less, perhaps a little more, and we should see the Sanctu¬ 
ary before us, if we could only start!” 

“But, Grandad,” interrupted Helen, who sat fanning 

103 


104 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


herself with her topee in an endeavour to bear with the 
terrible heat, which had encircled her eyes with deep 
violet shadows and caused her collar bones to show with 
undue prominence. “How can you be sure that that 
range of mountains is the one in which the water is hid¬ 
den? It seems to me to be too near the beginning of the 
desert not to have been discovered before, if it is. In 
fact, Abdul told me that his own brother had been within 
five miles of it.” 

“And why, when so close, did he not go closer still?” 

“Because of the great barrier of evil the bad spirits, 
which live in the mountains, have built to keep people 
aw r ay.” 

“Exactly,” said the old man triumphantly. “We are 
not going to break new ground, my dear child; we are 
going to break through the barrier of superstition 
erected by the Arabs themselves, and which alone has kept 
them from the water of which they stand so badly in need 
in this terrible spot.” 

“It is rather appalling, I must say, without the camp 
fires,” said Ralph Trenchard, who, in shorts and a silk 
shirt, wrestled unceasingly with insects of all sizes and 
shapes which flew and crawled about them, attracted 
by the light of the torch. 

“However did those poor beggars get through without 
oils of lavendar and lemon, kerosene and smoke of sulphur 
to protect them from these brutes ?” He speared a spider 
as he spoke and flung it into the night, then took Helen’s 
hand in both of his. “Why not turn in, dearest? You 
look tired out, and we can’t move until the stars come out, 
either late to-night or to-morrow night.” 

She shook her head as she looked first at the sullen 
sky, then at the huddled figures of the Arabs, sitting with 
their heads buried in their burnous, and at the camels 
lying with their muzzles hidden in each other’s sides. She 
put her finger to her lips and shook her head again, as 
she glanced at her grandfather poring over the map, then 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 105 

at the sentries who paced the four sides of the rough 
square. 

The square was small and compact, with their Excel¬ 
lencies’ tents in the middle, and the camels so stabled 
that there could be no confusion between them and their 
drivers if danger should arise. To mark the four sides 
of the square a tent had been pitched at each angle. In 
the shadow of the one to the south a man lay with his 
ear to the ground. He lay like one asleep or dead until 
the sentry turned, when he crawled upon his belly back 
to the lines where, with the help of two others such as 
he, he unhobbled certain camels and fastened them 
together by means of long leather thongs buckled above the 
knee of the right forelegs, then let them loose. It is an 
invention of Satan himself to create confusion in a herd 
of camels, and has never been known to fail in the annals 
of the turbulent Peninsula. 

“Yes, why don’t you go and get some sleep, child?” 
said Sir Richard, who paid no attention to the passing 
of the hours himself, having acquired the Oriental’s gift 
of falling asleep when and where he wished. “Two o’clock 
already! Dear me! Plow quickly time does pass when 
one is pleasantly occupied!” He evicted something that 
crawled from the vicinity of his neck and patted his 
granddaughter’s hand. “There’ll be plenty of time for 
love-making, little one, when we get back to east winds 
and frosts, so run along and take off your boots and 
comb your hair and wheedle a basinful of water from 
Hassin. I don’t know what I should have done without 
you, and I’m glad to think that there is a man almost good 
enough to look after you. Ah! I thought so. We’re in 
for a thunderstorm. That accounts for the sky and this 
oppressiveness.” 

He turned and looked due south, childishly pleased 
that he had caught the distant rumbling before the others; 
then looked up at Ralph Trenchard, who had leapt to his 
feet, jerking Helen up beside him. 


106 ZARAH THE CRUEL 

“Do you hear it now? Of course, the storm may pass 
us by.” 

“The storm’s not going to pass us by!” answered 
Ralph Trenchard sharply. “That sound has nothing to 
do with thunder; it’s the sound of horses galloping on 
sand. Remember I did my bit in Egypt and know what 
I’m talking about, and they’re not far off either. Take 
Helen to your tent and stay there, so that I can know 
where you are. Don’t leave it. Quick! Oh, damn the fool!” 

A sentry had fired into the pitchy darkness. 

The Arab is inclined to impulsiveness with firearms 
when left to himself, but he is a born fighter and a mag¬ 
nificent fighter when properly armed and led. He will 
fight to the death for a cause, for a bet, for nothing at 
all; he loves fighting, and does not own himself beaten 
until death overtakes him or he is rendered incapable of 
movement through wounds. 

The camp seethed. 

Now that the danger was upon them the men were in 
high fettle at the prospect of a fight. If they died—well, 
kismet! It would be because their hour had come. If 
they lived, the great English Sheikh would reward them 
bounteously for having so well defended her Excellency 
• their mistress. They were well armed, the ammunition 
plentiful, and the young English Sheikh a man among men 
to lead them into battle. So they yelled in response to 
the yelling of the distant enemy, and loosened their knives 
and examined their rifles whilst calling upon the Prophet 
to allow the battle to be long and bloody and the reward 
great. 

The camp had not been caught unprepared, and all 
might have gone exceeding well if it had not been for 
the half-dozen camels which the spies had fastened 
together with leather thongs. Panic-stricken, they rushed 
amongst the others standing helpless on account of the 
hobbles, entangling them, binding them one to the other 
as they fought to get free. 


107 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

I 

“Rifle all right, darling? And yours, sir?” 

Ralph Trenchard paused for an instant at the tent, 
then ran to take his place amongst the men who watched 
the magnificent picture before them, withholding their 
fire by his orders. 

A torch flared suddenly in the far distance, and another, 
and yet another, until a line of orange flame swept across 
the sky towards the camp, rising and falling at regular 
intervals as though borne upon the crest of some gigantic 
wave. 

From underneath the flaming line came the thunder of 
many hoofs and the shouting of many men, invisible 
in the darkness. Then showed dimly the shape of a white 
horse ridden by a woman, and behind her horses and men 
sweeping down to the attack. 

Glittering from head to foot with jewels, shouting 
with her men, Zarah the Cruel, the mysterious woman 
of the desert, rode her favourite stallion native-wise, 
guiding him with her knees, ripping his satiny sides 
with golden spur to keep him a length ahead of those she 
led. 

“Ista’jil! Zarah! Ista’jil! Zarah!” 

The men shouted the battle-cry and the Arabian’s 
name unceasingly as they drove their horses at full gallop 
over the billows of sand, holding aloft their throwing 
spears, upon the points of which lighted torches flared. 
Little cared she that the line of light made a splendid 
target for the enemy hidden in the darkness; little cared 
she what happened to those around her so long as tales 
of mystery and power about her were carried throughout 
the Peninsula, across to Egypt, and up to Turkey and far 
away to India. 

She raised her spear when a volley from the camp 
brought men and horses crashing to the ground, and turn¬ 
ing to Al-Asad, who rode at her right hand, shouted an 
order, which he repeated, whilst the men yelled “Wall! 
Wah!” as they raised their spears and whirled them above 




108 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


their heads, until the sky seemed full of great circles of 
fire and the earth possessed of demons. 

There came the crash of a second volley from the camp 
just as Al-Asad raised his hand, and the spears, with 
flaming torch upon the points, flashed like meteors in a 
semicircle through the air, to fall in the centre of the 
camp. 

‘‘They surround us, Excellency!” shouted Abdul, who 
had left the screaming, fighting camels to their fate so 
as to stand by the side of the white man he had learned 
to love and respect during the long weeks they had passed 
together. “Watch her, that thrice accursed daughter 
of pigs; she makes the point from which her men 
deploy.” 

As the men spread out on each side of her Zarah reined 
the stallion in, holding him, rearing and plunging, upon 
one spot, seemingly indifferent to the bullets which 
rained about her, spitting up the sand at the animal’s 
feet, bringing her men and her horses to the ground. She 
laughed aloud and raised her spear twice above her head 
as the tent to the north caught fire, lighting up the 
smallest detail of the inferno. In the fire and the smoke 
caused by the torches falling amongst the packs and tents 
Ralph Trenchard and his men worked like demons to 
loosen the great water skins, whilst the camels shrieked 
and fought and tore at each other in their agony, as 
the spears hurled by the enemy were buried in their sides 
or in the ground, or in the breasts of the Arabs who fought 
so desperately for life. 

“Have they no rifles ?” yelled Trenchard. 

“Yea, verily! But the daughter of swine would take 
the white people alive for ransom,” yelled back Abdul. 
“We are surrounded, Excellency. To the glory of Allah 
we die fighting.” 

Trenchard gave one quick look over his shoulder 
towards the tent where, outlined against the light of 
the fire, Sir Richard and Helen stood shoulder to shoulder 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


109 


with smoking rifles in their hands. “Fire!” he shouted, as 
Zarah raised her spear and threw it with unerring aim. 

“Out knives and fight to the death!” 

He yelled the order which transports the Arab to 
the seventh heaven of delight as the spear buried itself 
in Sir Richard’s gallant old heart, and the enemy moved 
suddenly and swiftly down upon them. 

“Fall back and give no quarter!” he shouted again, 
unwitting in the din and turmoil of a party of Bedouins 
which, attracted by the red glow in the sky and the 
sound of firing, raced towards the scene of battle from 
the west. 

Shouting encouragement, firing until his rifle became 
too hot to hold, Trenchard backed slowly towards Helen, 
who knelt clasping her grandfather in her arms. 
Wounded, shouting, the men fell back slowly to form a 
square round her Excellency the white woman, who had 
accounted for more than one of the enemy and who, in 
her bravery, was to be ranked with the most famous of 
hadeeyahs , even Ayesha, the wife of Mohammed the 
Prophet, whilst the spy who had loosened the camels 
worked his way sideways until he stood close behind the 
white man for whose capture alive a great reward had been 
promised. 

“Stand fast, men, they’re on us!” shouted Trenchard 
as, with a ringing yell, the enemy charged, just as the 
six camels, their long leather thongs burned through, 
shrieking and maddened with the agony of their burns 
and wounds, rushed the gallant square. 

“God have mercy upon us!” Helen cried as she sprang 
to her feet to watch the terrible sight of horses and 
camels fighting to the death, making an impassable wedge 
separating her from Ralph Trenchard. 

Outlined against a background of orange light, they 
looked like mighty prehistoric beasts as they reared and 
plunged, falling to their knees, scrambling to their feet, 
shrieking as only horses and camels can shriek, in pain 



110 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


and fear. Sick to the heart, she tried in vain to catch 
a glimpse of the man she loved, whilst Zarah, with Al- 
Asad at her side, rode round and round the camp, shout¬ 
ing the battle-cry, yelling encouragement to those of her 
men who were left alive to fight. 

Just for the moment Helen stood searching vainly for 
her lover, her ears deaf to the din of the battle, her eyes 
blinded to the terrible sights, then flung herself down 
beside the old man she loved so deeply. Where she loved 
she had no fear, neither could any task be too hard for 
her to undertake for the loved one’s welfare, so that she 
knelt beside Sir Richard and gently drew out the spear 
which had pierced the gallant heart. When she under¬ 
stood that it had for ever ceased to beat she gathered 
him up into her strong arms and kissed his white hair. 
She held him so, just for a little while, as her mind uncon¬ 
trollably raced back through the happy years spent with 
him; then she laid him down upon the desert sand and, 
picking up her rifle, rose to her feet. 

She was of those for whom great danger holds no 
terror. Thrice blessed indeed are they upon whom that 
great tranquillity descends in the midst of danger; who, 
steadied and exhilarated by peril, help those around 
them by their unwavering calm. 

She stood, with the dead man at her feet, waiting 
to help the living man she loved as he fell back slowly 
towards her, fighting desperately. 

Where the men met they fought without quarter, regard¬ 
less of the hammering hoofs, the tearing teeth, the foam 
and blood and welter of the animals. Stripped to the 
waist, black with grime, fighting at such close quarters 
that he could scarce tell friend from foe, Trenchard 
fought, using the butt-end of his revolver, with Abdul by 
his side, whilst the Bedouins approached nearer and 
nearer, unseen on account of the smoke, unheard in the din. 

“Thy wife!” shouted Zarah, leaning towards Al-Asad 
and pointing to Helen, who stood alone with her back 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


111 


towards them, nauseated at the sight of a bay mare and 
a wounded camel in death grips. The camel had reared 
and flung itself upon the mare, meeting its teeth just 
below her ears, wdiilst she, lashing out until great rents 
were torn in the dying camel’s belly, tried vainly to free 
herself from the paralysis which crept over her through 
the vice-like grip upon her spine. 

“Bism ’ allah!” yelled Al-Asad, as Helen raised her 
rifle. “Behold! is she the maid to be the mother of sons? 
Let us take her to blind Yussuf as his part of the spoil.” 
He yelled again in sheer admiration as a double report 
rang out and the fighting beasts dropped; then rode down 
upon Helen as she reloaded, and lifting her, swung her, 
fighting like a tiger, across the saddle. 

He laughed exultantly as he held her down, pressing her 
hands against her neck -with his left hand until she was 
almost suffocated, and her knees down with his right 
hand, whilst his horse, guided by the pressure of his 
knees, raced back to where Zarah waited, laughing and 
shouting remarks which, fortunately, were not heard above 
the uproar. 

“Behold, she is for thee—thy mate,” she cried; “and 
I—look thou—look—look—behold my mate, alone 
amongst wolves.” Al-Asad, who could hear no word of 
what she said, looked to where she pointed, then laughed 
savagely when she screamed in an agony of fear. 

It happened in a second. 

Flames suddenly burst from the tent to the east, leap¬ 
ing to the very sky, against which, for one instant, Ralph 
Trenchard, with Abdul at his side, stood out clearly. 

Zarah leant forward, revolver in hand, and fired—too 
late. From out the heap of dead and dying the spy had 
sprung, felling Ralph Trenchard to the ground with a 
blow from the handle of a throwing knife behind the ear, 
to fall himself with Abdul’s knife in his side. 

Then friend and foe turned and, shoulder to shoulder, 
faced the onslaught of the new terror which fell upon them 



112 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


out of the night, whilst Abdul flung himself down upon the 
body of the white man he loved, and ripping the cloak from 
a dead Arab, covered him and pulled him under the shel¬ 
tering bodies of two dead camels. 

Zarah turned in her saddle and emptied her revolver into 
the group of Bedouins who, lying upon their horses’ 
necks, raced down upon her; then shouted to Al-Asad 
and, giving the stallion his head, fled for her life. They 
did not skirt the camp; they rode right through it and 
over everything they encountered in their path, heedless 
of the curses called down upon them by the wounded they 
trampled underfoot. Out into the coming dawn they 
sped, guided by the stars for which Sir Richard had so 
ardently longed, with the limp body of the English girl 
as their sole reward for the disastrous night. 

fV- aV 

#x»" 


The stars went out and the sky lightened down in 
the east as the Bedouins sat in a circle, taking counsel 
together. 

The camels and horses that were fit for use stood 
hobbled, placidly ruminating or fretting and fidgeting, 
near the spot where the west tent had stood; the prisoners 
lay groaning on the ground, or sat, with the fatalism of 
the East, awaiting their sentence. 

The sky was covered, as far as eye could see, with 
vultures, whirling and swooping, settling as near as 
they dare to the feast awaiting them, or standing motion¬ 
less until some noise or movement sent them flying in 
flocks skywards, an offence against the glory of the 
heavens. 

The unconscious form of Ralph Trenchard lay at the 
feet of the Bedouin chief, whilst Abdul, by his side, craft¬ 
ily bargained for their lives. 

“A man of much wealth thou hast seized, O my brother! 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


113 


A great sheikh in a country where the towns are paved 
with gold, the bazaars are full of jewels, and the streets 
of houris of the greatest beauty.” 

“Perchance ’tis true; but how know we that he will 
give us of his wealth once we have nursed him back to 
life and allowed him to depart from us?” 

Abdul turned in the direction of Mecca and lifted his 
hand. 

“By the beard of the Prophet I swear it, by the wind 
and the wool and the honour of the Arab I swear it, 
knowing him of whom I speak. In the name of my father 
and my father’s fathers I will stand as bond for 
this man’s honour. My life for his word, O brother; and 
life is sweet, even unto those who are born in lowliness. 
There is much wealth upon the backs of the camels, for 
behold! the fire has but touched the covering. It is thine 
in return for his life.” 

“It is mine already, O brother!” 

Abdul played his trump card. 

“Yea, if thou darest to take it. If thou wilt listen 
to me it will be thine without the fear of questioning 
from the king of the great white race, who knows the 
movements of each one of his subjects and meteth out 
death to those who slay his children or keep them prisoner. 
I am the white man’s servant; let me but nurse him back 
to health, heal his wounds and allay his fever so that he 
may start upon the quest of the white woman he loves, 
and I will pour the tale of thy goodness into his ears in 
such wise that peace and plenty will be thine for ever 
more. Is it not written, brethren, ‘He is the chosen of 
the people who rejoices in the welfare of others’?” 

So it came about as it had been written that, after 
many hours the birds of prey drew closer to the scene 
of tragedy, whilst Abdul, holding his master gently in 
his arms, followed the Bedouins upon camelback as they 
rode slowly away across the path by which they had so 
swiftly come. 



CHAPTER IX 


“The walls have ears .”— Arabic Proverb. 

Helen Raynor lay like a broken lily, asleep upon a 
divan piled with cushions, in a great room built between 
two ledges of rock high up on the mountainside. 

The place was bare, save for rugs upon the floor and 
the cushions of every colour of the rainbow, embroidered 
in gold, patterned in jewels, and quite unfit for an 
invalid’s repose. 

It was refreshingly cool in spite of being nearer the 
scorching sun than any other part of the erstwhile 
monastery. A great slab of rock, many feet in thick¬ 
ness, jutting from the mountainside, made a natural 
ceiling; huge brass bowls full of water stood on the rock 
floor; the desert winds of dawn and sunset blew in at the 
cross-shaped apertures which took the place of windows 
in the east and west walls, built of pieces of stone of all 
shapes and sizes, fitted together in mosaic fashion and 
two feet thick; the door faced the cleft in the mountain 
ring, and through it could be seen the limitless desert, 
a view of infinite peace. 

An austere place, imbued with quiet strength, an eyrie 
of peace, conjuring up pictures of abstinence and sac¬ 
rifice, it stood as it had been built all those centuries 
ago by the Holy Fathers for their prior, connected with 
the plateau by a dizzy flight of steps leading straight 
down to the water which Sir Richard had hoped to dis¬ 
cover for the good of mankind and his own satisfaction. 

Namlah, the native woman, shivered as she sat outside 
on the edge of the platform upon which the place had been 
built, but as much from the effect her surroundings were 

114 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


115 


having upon her as from the chill breeze of dawn. She 
got to her feet, her many anklets jangling as she moved, 
and walked to the edge of the rock ledge and looked down 
at the water and shivered again and sighed. 

Zarah the Cruel had made the biggest mistake of her 
life when, in a fit of towering rage, she had set Namlah 
to tend and guard Helen Raynor. She had thought to 
set a jailer at the girl’s door; she had placed a friend. 
She had thought to take the body-woman’s thoughts away 
from her dead son by piling still more work upon the 
bent shoulders; instead she gave her hours in which to 
sit, to dream, to plan out some way in which to revenge 
herself for the loss of her child. 

Her son had not returned from the disastrous battle. 
He lay somewhere out there in the desert. Her son was 
dead. And when, mad with grief, she had flung herself 
at her mistress’s feet and begged to be allowed to go 
and find him and bury him, she had been struck across 
the mouth and ordered up to the dwelling where the 
prisoner lay, and threatened with still more dire punish¬ 
ment if she told the white girl aught about the secrets 
of the place. 

And what could worse punishment mean but the death 
of the one son left her? The dumb boy she loved even 
more than she had loved the one who had not returned 
from battle; the boy who had been nicknamed “Yussuf’s 
Eyes,” and who spoke by tapping with his slender fingers 
upon the blind man’s arm, and almost as readily and 
clearly as if he used his silent tongue. 

Grief and a great fear filled her heart. 

What if Zarah the Merciless took this son? She 
touched an amulet of good luck which hung about her neck 
and turned to draw an extra covering over the prisoner 
left in her care. 

“Beautiful! Beautiful!” she whispered, gently stroking 
the golden hair she delighted to brush for the hour 
together, and which covered the girl, like a veil, to her 


116 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


knees. “What will be thy fate in the hands of the one who 
knows no mercy?” She spat as she spoke and sat down 
at the foot of the divan. “Thou a slave who art a 
queen in beauty? Thou to obey where thou hast ruled, 
to go when ordered, to come when bidden? Nay! Allah 
protect thee and bring thee safely through that which 
awaits thee. I love thee, white woman, for thy gentle¬ 
ness in thy distress. Not one harsh word in the days 
when the fever ran high; not one black look in these 
days when thy weakness is as that of the new-born lamb. 
Behold, is this the time to replace about thy neck the 
amulet which fell from thy strange clothing when I did 
take them from off thee, thou white flower?” She 
searched in her voluminous robes and drew out a small 
golden locket on a broken chain, and sat turning it over 
and over in her hand, fighting a great temptation. She 
fingered the brass bracelets and the silver ring she wore 
a.nd rubbed the gold chain against her pock-marked 
cheek. 

“The amulet, yea, that will I not keep, for fear I 
rob the white woman of her birthright of happiness; but 
the chain, of what use is it to her? It is thin and 
broken. . . .” She twined it round her wrist, looking 
at it with longing eyes, then, with a little sigh, unwound 
it and slipped it round the girl’s neck and, knotting the 
broken ends, hid the locket under the silken garment and 
ran out quickly on to the platform. 

She sat just outside the door, indifferently watching 
the starlit sky with twinkling eyes in a wry face. 

“Behold, I love thee,” she whispered, “and would bring 
thee back to health. Not alone because of my love for 
thee, but for that within me which tells me that ‘the, 
time approaches when a camel will crouch down on the 
place of another camel.’ ” She rubbed her work-worn 
hands as she quoted the proverb and pondered upon the 
happy day when the reigning tyrant should be dethroned 
and someone with bowels of compassion should be elected 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


117 


in her stead. She turned her sleek head and looked once 
again at the girl, and fingered her brass bracelets and 
smiled, as she quoted another proverb, until her perfect 
teeth flashed in the dusk. “ ‘He who cannot reach to the 
bunch of grapes says of it, it is sour.’ Behold, I think 
the golden chain would not have become my beauty.” She 
rose as she spoke, laughing, with the childlike happiness 
of the Eastern who is pleased, and crossed to a small 
recess, where she made great clatter amongst many brass 
pots in the process of concocting a strong and savoury 
broth. 

She stood for a moment watching Helen, who had 
wakened at the noise and lay looking out through the 
cleft in the mountains to the desert. 

Eor three weeks, so far as she could judge, she had 
lain ’twixt fever and stupor in the strange room, tended 
by a middle-aged native who put her finger to her lips 
when questioned. 

Three weeks of agonizing uncertainty as to the fate 
of those she loved, in which in her delirium she had fought 
maddened men and beasts or sobbed her heart out in 
the native’s arms. Twice she had crawled to the platform 
and tried to descend the steps to reach her grandfather, 
whom she thought to see standing upon the river bank. 
Not once had she been aware of Zarah standing behind 
her as she lay on the bed, with a mocking smile on the 
beautiful, cruel mouth and a look of uncertainty in the 
yellow eyes. 

She had questioned the native woman, imploring her 
to give her news of the caravan, promising her her heart’s 
desire if she could but obtain authentic information 
about the man she loved. She had begged for her clothes, 
and when they had been refused had tried to rise from 
her bed, only to fall back, weak and exhausted from the 
fever which had resulted from the horror and shock of 
the battle and the terrible ride, during which, at the last, 
she had mercifully lost consciousness. 




118 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


“Am I in the hands of Zarah, the mysterious woman 
of the desert ?” she had whispered to the native the first 
day her senses had come back to her. “Has a white man 
been also taken prisoner? Is there any help for us?” 

Namlah had looked furtively over her shoulder and 
had put her finger upon her lips as she had whispered 
back: 

“ ‘The provision of to-morrow belongs to to-morrow’ 
is a wise saying, Excellency. Rest in peace whilst yet 
peace is with thee. ’Tis wise for the hare to abide beneath 
ground when the hawk hovers, and for the lamb to make 
no sound when the jackal prowls. ’Tis twice wise for 
the eyes to be wide open and the mouth shut when those 
who are in power are likewise in wrath.” She had bent 
over the girl as she had arranged the cushions, and had 
whispered lower still: “Trust not the news of her mouth, 
Excellency; it is as a well of poisoned water in which truth 
dies. There is one here whose words are as pure gold, 
though his eyes are like burned-out fires. When he brings 
news I will bring it thee. Thou may’st trust me.” She 
had slipped the cotton garment from her back as she 
spoke. “The marks of the whip that lashed my back are 
as naught compared to the wounds of grief which the 
greed and tyranny of our mistress have caused to cut 
deep into my heart.” She had stroked the girl’s hair and 
patted her hand when she had cried out at the sight of the 
great scars, and had waited upon her and nursed her, 
loving her the while. 

“I waited for thee to waken, Excellency,” she whispered 
this hour before the dawn. “Al-Asad has but just 
returned; he speaketh even now with Zarah the Cruel.” 

And having bathed Helen’s temples and wrists and fed 
her with much strong broth, Namlah crept noiselessly 
down the steep steps to the broad terrace where her 
mistress dwelt, and crouched, a shadow amongst shadows, 
under the window made by the Holy Fathers centuries 
ago. 


ZARAIL THE CRUEL 


119 


She stayed, crouched against the wall, listening to the 
voices of her mistress and Al-Asad the Nubian. Unable 
to catch their words, she touched the amulet at her neck 
and rose, inch by inch, until the top of her head was on 
a level with the window’s lower edge. 

“Of a truth wert thou cunning . . she heard her 
mistress say, losing the rest of the sentence in the peal 
of laughter that followed. 

Complete silence fell, and the night air became the 
heavier for the scents of musk, myrrh, attar and other 
such overpowering perfumes beloved of the Oriental, 
which floated through the window. Namlah sniffed 
appreciatively, then, too small to see above the window 
ledge, and with curiosity rampant in her heart, crouched 
down again until she knelt upon the rock, and felt around 
with slender, nimble fingers for the wherewithal with 
which to raise herself the necessary inches that would 
enable her to see into the room without being seen. 

She found nothing, but, spurred by the sound of her 
mistress’s voice, slipped out of her voluminous outer 
robe, rolled it into a bundle and stood upon it, a wizened, 
dusky slip of an eavesdropper, in a coarse, unembroidered 
qarnis. 

66 6 A small date-stone props up the water jar,’” she 
quoted, as with one brown eye she looked furtively into 
the room from the side of the window. 

She drew her breath sharply. Simple in her wants, 
as are all the natives of the serf-like class, she had never 
been able to get over the astonishment she felt at the 
sight of the luxury with which her mistress surrounded 
herself. 

The rough stone walls built by the Holy Fathers and 
the uneven stone floor had been covered with marble of 
the faintest green, cunningly worked along the edges in 
a great scroll pattern of gold mosaic. The scroll glit¬ 
tered in the light of four lamps hanging in the corners of 
the immense room, reflecting all the colours of the rainbow 


120 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


in their crystal chains and crystal drops. The drops 
and chains were reflected in a basin of pink marble in 
the centre of the room, and in five huge mirrors which 
the Arabian’s colossal vanity had caused her to place 
about. Gold and silver fish swam monotonously round 
and round in the marble basin, happily unconscious of 
the moment awaiting them when the woman would catch 
them in her dainty, henna-stained fingers and throw them 
on to the floor, for the mere pleasure of watching them 
die. The water for the marble basin was changed every 
few hours by prisoners, who toiled up and down the steep 
steps under the blazing sun and the lash of the over¬ 
seer’s whip, all of which doubtlessly added to the enjoy¬ 
ment Zarah felt when she caught the fish in her merciless 
hands. 

Persian carpets and countless cushions were spread 
upon the marble floor; stools and tables inlaid wdth ivory, 
gold and jewels stood upon them, also bowls of sweet¬ 
meats, trays of fruit and great vases of perfumed water, 
in all the profusion so dear to the heart of the wealthy 
Eastern. Two black and white monkeys chased each other 
all over the place, in and out of doors leading to other 
smaller rooms, which served as dressing-room and ward¬ 
robes, and up and down a slender steel staircase which 
reached to a platform built right across the north end of 
the room. The platform was two yards broad, the back 
made by the marble of the wall, the front protected by a 
fine broad-meshed gold netting which opened in the middle 
and swung back like a door. Covered with silken per¬ 
fumed sheets, piled with cushions and hung with orange- 
coloured satin curtains, it was but a somewdiat exag¬ 
gerated replica of many Oriental beds, -which are raised 
from the ground for the sake of coolness and also pro¬ 
tection from that which crawls by night. 

Inside the golden cage, with the slender steps safely 
drawn up from the floor, Zarah -would lie o’ nights, either 
watching the dim shape of her lion cub as it prowled 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


121 


this way and that, or sleeping with the untroubled 
conscience of the heartless, or dreaming waking dreams 
of the man she had learned to love in the space of a few 
moments. 

The lion cub, with neither teeth nor claws drawn, and 
which was a good deal nearer adolescence than a European 
would have considered healthy in a pet of that category, 
padded awkwardly backwards and forwards behind a 
divan upon which his mistress lay this night whilst listen¬ 
ing to Al-Asad the half-caste, who, just returned from 
seeking information concerning the white man, sat cross- 
legged on the floor beside her. 

“Tell me once again, O Asad, all that thou didst learn 
concerning the white man when, as one fleeing for his life, 
thou didst crave shelter in the Bedouin camp.” 

Al-Asad frowned as he looked at the woman whom he 
served in love and who had had no word of praise for 
the arduous undertaking he had so successfully accom¬ 
plished. He loathed himself for the love which so weak¬ 
ened him, causing him to tremble at her frown and almost 
to prostrate himself at her small feet when she gave him 
a smile. Longing to drive a knife through her heart to 
end it all, he held tight clasped instead the golden tassel 
of the cushion upon which she lay. 

“Words repeated are but waste of time, but, as I 
have told thee, O woman, the old white man lies buried 
deep in the sands, safe from the birds and beasts of prey, 
who have left but the bones and tattered raiment of man 
and beast to mark where the ill-fated battle was fought. 
The young white man, even the one about whom thou art 
besotted in love, lives, being taken prisoner, with one 
Abdul, by the accursed Bedouins who fell upon us. He is 
likewise recovered from a great fever which befell him 
from the blow dealt him, O Zarah, in the midst of the 
fight, and the blow of a hoof upon the forehead which 
struck him as he lay upon the ground. He has been nigh 
dead of this fever, fighting in his delirium, calling ever 









122 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


loudly upon the woman’s name I cannot remember, shout¬ 
ing aloud his love for her.” 

“Thou dullard,” broke in Zarah furiously. “Art as of 
little learning as the Bedouins who give him shelter for 
their own ends? Make yet another effort, even if thy 
tongue be too big for thy mouth, which is not over small.” 

Al-Asad shook his head, taking no notice of the gibe 
at the expense of his negroid blood. “I cannot, O woman. 
Yet should I know it again if I but heard it. To pro¬ 
nounce it, must the mouth be opened and the word dropped 
out without movement of the lips.” 

Zarah twisted herself round upon her elbows until 
her face was on a level with the man’s. 

“Helen!” she said quietly, and sat upright, clasping 
her hands about her knees, when the Nubian laughed and 
nodded his head. 

“So,” she said slowly, “he loves her! Yet has she 
said no word of him, neither wears she his likeness upon 
her breast, which, O Asad, is a sickly habit of those who 
love in northern climes. I have sat with her, watched over 
her in her fever, yet has she said no word of him, neither 
found I aught in her garments when I searched them, and 
the ring that is upon her finger is but a trifle from the 
bazaar.” 

That Helen’s engagement ring happened to be a 
scarab inscribed with words of power, and worth a great 
price, she was not to know. 

“Namlah, the body woman who tends her, has she found 
naught ?” 

Zarah laughed as she turned and looked at the stars 
through the window, outside which stood a dusky slip of 
an eavesdropper. 

“Oh, she, the fool, she thinks of naught but the 
wounds upon her back and the failure of her son to 
return from the battle. In her stupidity is she the safest 
of all to wait upon the white girl? Yet how can I make 
use of this Helen, who has vexed my spirit since first we 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


123 


met? How can I pay back the laughs and torments of 
her companions at that thrice accursed school if she does 
not love this man?’’ 

“He loves her, O Zarah!” guilelessly remarked the 
Nubian, who w r as finding rare balm for his own wound in 
the hurt of his mistress. 

Zarah flung herself round and struck at the handsome, 
stolid face with the loaded whip she kept handy in case 
of an emergency with her four-footed pet. 

“Thou fool!” she stormed. “Keep thy mouth closed 
upon such w^ords. What know T est thou of the ways of 
white men and women? They travel together with as 
much freedom as though they were brother and sister; 
they dance in each other’s arms; they go to the festival 
together, returning alone at the rising of the sun; they 
ride and drive and work together, yet are they but friends, 
there being naught of love between them. Thinkest thou 
that the man would look twice upon yon woman, who is 
the colour of a garment which has hung overlong in the 
sun, if I were at his side, dost thou?” 

In her wrath she looked like one of the restless birds 
of vivid plumage which sang or moved incessantly in the 
golden cages standing against the walls; but Al-Asad 
wisely refrained from answering the question, as he 
glanced at them and thought of the joy some men find 
in the homely sparrow. 

“Let the white woman, with a name like a drop of 
water which droppeth from a spout, write unto the white 
man and bid him hasten to her to deliver her from danger. 
If he loves her he will speed upon the wings of love, as 
I w T ould speed if danger should threaten thee, woman of 
a thousand beauties.” 

“Oh, thou!” contemptuously replied Zarah, as she 
pulled the ears of the lion cub which sprawled at her 
feet. “Nay, thy words are as empty of wisdom as the 
pod of the bean that is in the pot. Thou knowest not the 
white race. It weeps over a hurt done to a beast; it 


124 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


bares its breast to receive the spear thrown at another; 
it will suffer torture, yea, even death, to shield a brother 
from harm.” 

She sat for a long moment, then looked sideways into 
the man’s eyes and smiled until he w r axed faint wuth 
love. 

“A light shines, O Asad of the lion heart. I will go, 
when she w T aketh from her sleep, and make friends with her 
and work upon her feelings of friendliness for one who 
sojourned with her in the thrice accursed school. She 
will then bid the white man hither to join in the circle of 

friendliness, and then-” She laughed softly as she 

opened her hand and closed the fingers slowly. 

“And then, Zarah, thou merciless one, what then?” 

“Then will I replace her in the heart of the man I 
love and give her to thee, as wife or what thou wilt, so 
that in thy sons the blackness of thy blood may be equalled 
by the whiteness of hers, and her days be passed in one 
long torment through the different colouring of her off¬ 
spring.” 

But Al-Asad was in no wise inclined to her way of 
thinking, and said so in blunt, crude wmrds. He made no 
movement as he told her of the love which consumed him; 
he did not raise his musical voice one tone as he described 
the heaven of his days when near her and the hell when 
separated from her, even for a few hours; he repeated 
the story of his love stubbornly, quietly, over and over 
again, and made no sign of his hurt w r hen she laughed 
aloud in merriment. 

“Behold, O Asad!” she cried as she laughed. “Behold, 
art thou as perverse as the mule and as blind to thine own 
advancement as is Yussuf—that thrice accursed thorn 
in my side—to the sun in his path. A beauteous maid, 
white as ivory, gentle as the breeze of dawn, awaits thee 
but a few steps higher upon the mountainside, and yet 
dost thou sit, like a graven image of despair, within the 
shadow of one whose love is given elsewhere.” 




ZARAH THE CRUEL 


125 


“Love!” repeated the half-caste slowly. “Thou and 
love! ’Twere enough to make the mountains split with 
laughter to hear thee! Let us cease this foolish talk. I 
love thee, Zarah, and will have none other woman but 
thee; but I love thee so well that, rather than see thee 
suffer the torment I suffer, I would bring thee thy heart’s 
desire and find in thy happiness my happiness and death!” 

“How sayest thou, little cat?” Zarah turned lazily on 
her side as she spoke to the lion cub. “Wouldst bring 
a mate to thy love because she would have none of thee, 
or w r ouldst break her will or her neck so as to prove thy¬ 
self her master?” 

Nahlah gasped and Asad leant quickly forward when, 
with a low growl of pleasure, the great cat sprang upon 
the divan and stood across its mistress, kneading the silken 
cover into strips. 

“Learn thy lesson from the four-footed beast,” cried 
Zarah sharply, as she struck the animal across the eyes 
with the whip until it leapt from the divan and slunk 
across the room, where it crouched in a corner with lashing 
tail and blazing eyes. “The lesson which teaches the 
slave that there is a line beyond which his foot may not 
go.” 

But Al-Asad was taking no notice of the lesson he 
was being taught. From under half-closed lids he was 
watching something round outside the window which, to 
the best of his knowledge, had not been there when he had 
sat down upon the floor, something which he mistook for 
Yussuf’s head, knowing the hatred which existed between 
him and his mistress. 

“Let us cease this foolish talk,” he repeated as he 
rose slowdy to his feet, his heart hot with anger at the 
thought of the spy. “Let us instead”—he lowered his 
voice to the merest whisper as he spoke—“let us visit 
the woman who is to be the bait in the trap into which 
the white man will place his feet.” 

He was at the door with one mighty bound, and out to 



126 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


the wall which showed bare in the starlight. He stood 
listening for the faintest sound. 

None came. 

Namlah lay flat on her face upon the steps, her dusky 
slip of a body and saffron-coloured qamis one with the 
shadows. 

But she was making noise enough with her beloved brass 
pots to disturb the invalid or to waken the dead as her 
dreaded mistress, followed by the gigantic half-caste, 
entered the room in which the prisoner lay, looking out 
towards the desert where she had lost those she loved 
so dearly. 


CHAPTER X 


“Sweet of tongue but of distant beneficence” 

—Arabic Proverb. 

“Zarah ! It is—it is you! Then it was you!” 

Helen raised herself on her elbow and stared at the 
bewildering picture which suddenly appeared in the door¬ 
way, blotting out the peace of the coming dawn and the 
far-stretching desert. 

Wrapped from head to foot in a great cloak of orange 
satin, the Arabian stood outlined against the purple 
sky, with the Nubian behind her, whilst Namlah, hidden 
behind her pots and pans in the recess, cursed beneath 
her breath with all the Oriental’s volubility. 

The terrified body-woman had lain flat on her face upon 
the steps until certain that she had not been discovered, 
then, as the sky had lightened, had crept like some 
gigantic spider up the steps and into the room where the 
white girl lay. She had barely had the time to whisper a 
warning and to run noiselessly across to the recess and 
hide herself when they heard her mistress’s voice speak¬ 
ing softly to the Nubian as they, too, mounted the steps. 

Zarah did not hesitate. She determined upon a plan 
of action even as she caught the unconquerable look in 
the girl’s bewildered face. 

Here was no weakling to be bullied into submission, 
no poor spirit to be tyrannized, no faltering feet to be 
whipped along a certain road; rather was it a case for 
duplicity and cunning, with flowers and green boughs to 
cover the dug pit into which, misled, betrayed, Helen 
Raynor would ultimately fall. 

With a little cry she ran across to the divan, flung her- 

127 



128 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


self on her knees and seized Helen’s hand with a world of 
innocence and entreaty in her strange eyes. 

“Helen R-raynor-r!” She spoke the sweetest broken 
English in the world, her r’s rolling like little drums. “Ze 
fr-r-ien’ of my youz! Can you under-r-stan’? Can I 
beg for your-r for-r-give-e-ness for ze ter-r-ible mistake?” 

She gave Helen no time to grant it or not. She launched 
out on the most plausible explanation of the disastrous 
battle that a crafty mind could possibly have invented 
on the spur of the moment. “I could not hold my men; 
I could not make zem hear-r or-r under-r-stan’ in ze noise 
of ze fight zat we had not foun’ ze r-r-right enemy.” She 
flung her arms up above her head, which she then pro¬ 
ceeded to bow to the ground. “By ze gr-r-ace of Allah” 
—she raised her face and right hand to the ceiling, a 
veritable picture of piety—“zey did hear-r my or-r-der 
not to fir-r-e so zat you, dear-r fr-rien* of my happy 
schooldays, was not kill-ed. Ah! Zose ozer bar-r-bar- 
rians zat kill-ed ze old Englishman wiz ze white hair-r, zay 
were ze ones we-” 

“My grandfather! But he was killed by a spear through 
the heart, a spear thrown by one of your men. The others 
came up from behind!” 

In spite of the reputation for lying and every kind of 
deception that the Arabian had gained at school, Helen 
had almost allowed herself to believe the plausible tale 
told in the guileless voice. 

But, her suspicions aroused by the last barefaced 
untruth, she drew away as far as the divan w r ould allow 
from the supplicating figure with the sorrow-laden eyes. 

But as well try to catch an ostrich on the run as Zarah 
in a falsehood. 

She rose to her feet, a superb figure of sorrowful indig¬ 
nation, and threw out her hands as best she could for the 
cloak she had wrapped round herself in an effort to hide 
the scantiness of her attire, then sat down on the foot of 
the divan, facing her enemy. 



ZARAH THE CRUEL 


129 


“Helen R-ray-nor-r! You believe zat of my men, mine, 
over-r whom I r-reign as queen? Ze bar-r-bar-rians sur- 
r-rounded us, zey thr-r-rew ze spear-r fr-rom behind my 
men. Zen I give ze or-r-der to Al-Asad, who is my body- 
guar- r-d.” She pointed to the Nubian, who stood just 
outside the door, watching the rocks in the hope of see¬ 
ing Yussuf pass amongst them. “I tell him to save you 
from ze savage Bedouins.” 

“But why me alone?” Helen drew the silken coverlet 
about her and got to a sitting position on the edge of 
the divan, whilst Namlah watched the battle of wills be¬ 
tween the beautiful women from the recess, which was 
just behind Zarah’s back. 

Zarah leapt at the chance of firmly establishing her 
lie. “But zer-r-e was no one else to save. Ze old one, 
your-r gr-ran’fazer-r, was dead.” 

“No, no, no!” Helen sat forward in her intense ex¬ 
citement, her eyes shining, her hands clenched. “There 
was another Englishman with us, someone you know, 
Zarah. Think of it, someone you have met!” 

“Me! I have met! A fr-r-rien’ of yours and mine! 
I do not under-r-stan’!” 

Quickly, breathlessly, Helen reminded her of the day 
she had fallen from her horse into Ralph Trenchard’s 
arms. 

“You remember! Oh, you must remember! He told 
me all about you; said how magnificently you rode. Oh, 
and when he heard about the mysterious woman of the 
desert, he said he thought it might be you, because you 
had told him that you came from somewhere about here 
and had asked him to pay your father a visit. Didn’t you 
see him? Don’t you know where he is? And are you the 
wonderful woman everyone talks about?” 

Zarah clapped her hands in childlike enjoyment. 

“I just r-remember-r him,” she cried gleefully, whilst 
longing to choke the life out of the girl in front of her. 
“And he was wiz you? Then wher-r-e is he? We 




130 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


sear-r-ched after-r-wards for our-r men upon ze battle¬ 
field, but saw nozing of ze old man, nor-r his bones, nor-r 
his clothes, and nozing of—of ze ozer. I mean zer was 
no tr-r-ace of any ozer. I know!” She clapped her hands 
and laughed. “We saw marks leading back to Hareek. 
He is escaped, taking wiz him ze body of your-r gr-r-an’- 
fazer-r, and is waiting for you, to know wher-r-e you 
ar-r-e, to come and fetch you.” 

“Perhaps! Perhaps you are right!” quietly replied 
Helen, her eyes fixed on the clasped fingers, which showed 
white at the joints under the pressure of the Arabian’s 
emotion. “Yes, perhaps you are right.” She smiled 
gently and nodded her head, whilst she asked herself if 
Zarah’s intense solicitude could possibly arise out of 
friendship for herself. She decided that it did not when, 
on turning her head, she found the eyes of the handsome 
native fixed upon her. She frowned and drew the silken 
coverlet more closely about her in an instinctive desire 
to protect herself from the feeling of uneasiness and evil 
which had suddenly fallen upon her, and sighed with un¬ 
confessed relief when the sunrays tipped over the edge 
of the mountains and shone through the open door. “Tell 
me,” she said quickly, “why did you go out to fight those 
Bedouins? What harm had they done that they should 
be shot down, speared, massacred by a force far superior 
to their own? What right had you to take their 
lives?” 

It is most injudicious to ask such pertinent questions 
in the uncivilized places of the world, and it was well for 
Helen that she could not see the rage in the other’s heart 
at her daring. 

“ Ai-ai-di!” 

The cry of the mourner rose to high heaven as Zarah 
smote her breast, causing the doves and pheasants and 
other birds to rise in flocks, and the women near the 
water’s edge to look up from the business of the hour. 

“Behold!” lied she brazenly. “Even some moons ago 



ZARAH THE CRUEL 


131 


zose bar-r-bar-r-ians lay in wait for some of my people 
as zey r-ret-urned fr-r-om Hut ah. Ze men zey killed, 
ze women and ze little, little child-r-ren zey took away 
wiz zem. Am I not ze mozer of my people? Could I 
r-refuse my men when zey cr-ried to be r-revenged? Ah, 
fr-r-ien’ of my happy schooldays, ze ways of ze deser-r-t 
a-r-r-e not ze Avays of ze city. Let us not talk of zings 
so sad. Listen! I have some idea. Do you r-r-emember 
how Miss Jane used to scold when we said zat?” 

She did not give Helen time to say if she did or did 
not remember, but turned her head and said something 
in his own dialect to the Nubian. He raised his hand and 
walked to the edge of the platform, as unwitting as his 
mistress of Namlah the body-woman, who stood in the 
doorway of the recess, gesticulating violently and shaking 
her head. 

Helen looked at her quietly and then turned and looked 
out through the doorway, wondering what Zarah could 
have said to awaken such perturbation in Namlah’s heart. 

“What is the great idea, Zarah?” 

Zarah smiled bewitchingly, her teeth flashing, her eyes 
as soft as a gazelle’s. “I will r-r-repeat ze invitation 
to ze Englishman—ah, I cannot pr-r-o-nounce ze name— 
zrough you. You will wr-r-ite him a letter to ask him to 
come to stay for ze little time and to take you back wiz him 
■—yes? You will write, will you not, my dear fr-r-ien’?” 

Love, the master-key to all problems between woman 
and woman, unlocked the door which hid the secret work¬ 
ings of Zarah’s mind from Helen. The request explained 
Namlah’s agitation. Zarah had evidently told the Nu¬ 
bian about the letter of invitation. 

“How will you send the letter?” 

It seemed a trusty messenger would deliver the letter 
at Hutah and would wait to act as escort to the English¬ 
man on the return journey through the desert. 

“But Ralph Trenchard may be ill, or he may not be 
able to come.” Helen watched the other’s face intently 



132 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


as she spoke. “The messenger can escort me to Hutah 
instead of taking the letter.”^ 

“No woman is safe unar-r-med, and not even ar-r-med, 
alone in ze deser-r-t wiz a man. Be r-reasonable, little 
English r-r-ose, and wr-r-ite ze little letter.” 

“You could take me with an escort to Hutah, Zarah.” 

Zarah humbly touched her forehead, and threw out 
her hands as she raged inwardly at the other’s obstinacy. 

“I am ze mozer of my people. Zey mour-r-n, zey weep 
in zeir-r sor-r-row. I cannot leave zem even for a little, 
little while.” 

“You liar!” said Helen to herself, thoroughly aware 
at last of the trap which had been laid for the man she 
loved. 

There was no sign whatever in the women’s faces of the 
strength of the passions in their hearts. 

Zarah smiled the gentle smile of propitiation as she 
played for the fierce love which had possessed her for so 
long, repressing the hate and jealousy which urged her 
to call the half-caste and bid him fling the girl down to 
the rocks beneath. 

In the depths of Helen’s eyes lay the confident smile 
and the look of strength of those who can bear all, risk 
all, defy all, for love’s sake. 

Fell a little pause as the sun ray crept along the floor, 
flooding the room with light, making a golden halo round 
Helen’s head. 

“You do as I ask?” The question fell so gently in the 
quiet place. 

Helen leant forward and looked straight into her 
enemy’s eyes as she answered slowly: 

“No! I will not write that letter!” 

Fell another silence, in which, whilst exercising the 
little control she was capable of, Zarah traced the em¬ 
broidery upon the pillow and worked her cunning mind, 
and Helen sat still and silent, wondering what the answer 
to her refusal would be. Love made her brave, love made 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


133 


her ready for sacrifice, but she shivered involuntarily as 
she remembered the tales she had heard of the Arabian’s 
cruelty, rage and treachery, both at school and after. 

Perfectly healthy in mind and body, she shuddered 
at the thought of mental or physical pain for others, 
did everything in her power to alleviate it, made every 
effort to avert it from them. She felt intuitively that 
danger threatened the man she loved, and she longed 
to ask the Arabian the meaning of her mocking smile 
as she lazily traced the embroidery with a hennaed 
finger. 

Zarah was trying to come to a decision. 

She had methods which, though hardly civilized, were 
extremely efficacious in bending the most obstreperous 
person to her way of thinking; she had also a fair knowl¬ 
edge of the Briton’s stubbornness and excessive altruism. 

For some unknown reason Helen had suddenly become 
afraid for Ralph Trenchard. Why? She did not love 
him, because she neither blushed nor cast down her eyes 
when she mentioned his name, nor did she wear his por¬ 
trait, after the sickly manner of her race, about her 
person. 

Zarah loved the Englishman with all the violent, un¬ 
controlled passion of her parentage, but her hatred for 
the calm English girl was almost as deep and as violent 
as that love, and to it was added a seething desire for 
revenge—revenge for her looks, her breeding, her gentle 
ways, but, above all, for the intolerable camaraderie which 
evidently existed between her and the white man. 

If only she had known any sign of love, then would the 
revenge have been easy and subtle and of a surpassing 
cruelty, but her interest in the man seemed to be that of 
a friend and no more. 

In fact, she seemed only to be interested in her sur¬ 
roundings, in the distant view of the red desert rolling in 
great billows as far as eye could see, and the golden sun¬ 
shine which filled the room with its light and warmth. 




134 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


She watched Helen stretch slowly, shrug the over-warm 
coverlet from her shoulders and pull the cushions into a 
more comfortable position behind her shoulders; then, 
with the lightning quickness of a hawk, she leant sud¬ 
denly forward and wrenched at a locket which had slipped 
from the silken garment Helen wore. 

She sat quite still, staring at the portrait she held of 
the man she loved, then she gave a little sigh of intense 
satisfaction and laughed gently as she looked across at 
Helen, who stared in amazement and stretched out her 
hand. 

“What an extraordinary thing,” she said simply; “it 
must have got caught and been hidden all the time in the 
coverlet. I thought I had lost it that terrible night of 
fighting. Please give it me.” 

Zarah twisted the broken chain round her finger and 
swung it to and fro. She laughed like the girl she ought 
to have been and playfully shook her head. She could 
afford to be charming and frank; in fact, to prepare 
the first step upon the road of revenge she would have 
to pretend to tease her old schoolmate, so as to allay her 
suspicions. 

Yes! she could well afford to wait, for had she not the 
white man and the white girl in her power? Would she 
not be able to draw him into her net and put her in the 
dust at her feet through the little golden locket which 
swung on her finger? 

“I will keep it for a little while, Helen R-r-aynor-r, 
my dear-r fr-r-ien’, jus’ for a souvenir of ze ol’ days. 
My dwelling is your-r-s. I am sorry you will not be 
able to get away jus’ yet”—she laughed gently so as 
to disguise the threat held in the words—“but I am ze 
mozer of my people an’ cannot leave zem, an’ it is not 
safe for-r a young an’ beautiful woman to be in ze deser-r-t 
alone wiz an Ar-r-ab. You will wait a little until I am 
fr- r-ee? You will bathe, you will join in ze spor-r-ts 
an’ watch my happy people at zeir wor-r-k in zeir homes ? 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 135 

I have many books. You will also r-r-ide wiz me or wiz an 
escort in ze deser-r-t. Yes?” 

She laughed softly at the glint in Helen’s eyes, born 
of a suddenly conceived plan of escape. 

“Someone will show you, perhaps, ze way out an’ ze 
way in of my deser-r-t home. Zat you cannot lear-r-n by 
your-r-self because it is sur-r-rounded wiz ze quicksands, 
in which lie dead ze hundr-r-eds of men an’ beasts.” 

“Ah! tell me again, tell me about the quicksands which 
have, of course, kept the water hidden all this long time. 
Tell me all about it so that, when I get back to Bagdad, 
I can write to the papers and prove to the people, who 
laughed at Grandad, that his theory was correct.” 

Helen spoke quickly, her fear momentarily allayed by 
the thought of being able to vindicate her grandfather. 
Almost deceived by the other’s friendliness into believing 
that she was solicitous for her welfare, she smiled across 
at Zarah. 

Fully determined that the white girl should remain a 
lifelong prisoner, either dead or alive, in the mountains, 
Zarah recounted the romantic history of the strange 
place, whilst Al-Asad sat lost in dreams and Namlah 
gently rubbed her foot, which had become afflicted with 
cramp caused by her squatting position behind the pots 
and pans. 

Zarah spoke well, her melodious, deep voice filling the 
room, the jewels sparkling on her hands as she moved them 
in graceful, dramatic gesture. She recounted humorous 
incident, and laughed; tragic, and drew her hand across 
her dry eyes; she was hypocrisy incarnate as she revelled 
in the cunningly thought-out revenge she had decided 
to take upon her prisoner. 

“A wonder-r place, is it not, Helena? Unique in ze 
wor-r-ld. You do wr-r-ong in not sending ze invitation 
to our-r fr-r-ien’. I would zank him for-r saving me 
fr-r-om death in my schooldays. But if you will not, you 
will not, and as you will not, zen must I give you a body- 



136 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

guar-r-d to keep you safe until I take you back to him. 

“I don’t want a bodyguard, Zarah. As long as I have 
your permission to run about all over the place. . . .” 

“But zat is it, ze place is ver-r-y big an’ full of dan- 
ger-r-ous places.” Zarah had no intention of letting 
the girl make friends with any of her people, and rose 
as she spoke and crossed to the door. “I will ask Al- 
Asad to r-r-recommend someone to look after you, to 
chaper-r-ron you, as you say.” 

Al-Asad got to his feet when his mistress called him. 

“I have them in my hand,” she said, so quietly that 
Namlah strained her ears in vain. “We will descend and 
speak upon it, but I will not that she makes friends 
amongst my people; find thou, therefore, someone to be 
ever upon her heels.” 

“Nay, woman, leave her free so that we find out the 
workings of her mind through her actions and through 
the tongues of those with whom she speaks. Warn her 
body-woman, even the ever-busy Namlah, that her life 
depends upon the life of the white woman and-” 

Helen, who had been watching the magnificent couple, 
wondered what the sudden, heavy frown on Zarah’s face 
portended, and instinctively moved back when she swept 
into the room. 

“Where-r-re is your-r ser-r-vant?” she asked abruptly. 
“Why is she not attending you? Wher-r-e does zis Nam¬ 
lah hide her-r-self, zat woman with a face like a gr-r-avel 
path?” 

Helen smiled up at the Arabian and drew her hand 
across her hair, pushing it back as a sign to the pock¬ 
marked woman who stood, quaking with fear and with 
hands clasped in the doorway of the recess, to hide her¬ 
self. 

“She went down just as you came up. I wonder you 
didn’t pass her on the steps. I always like my linen 
washed at dawn, it smells so much the sweeter. She will be 
up in quite a little while to get my early cup of tea ready.” 



ZARAH THE CRUEL 


137 


Helen lied quietly, quickly, bravely, to save the little 
servant, and sighed with relief when Zarah swept out 
on to the platform in great w r rath. “Namlah!” she called, 
the mountains echoing the sweetness of her voice. “Nam- 
lah! Namlah! ta al huna! ta al huna!” and turned back 
into the room when Namlah did not come. 

“She hides somewhere, listening to our speech, the lynx- 
eyed, fox-eared daughter of pigs,” she stormed in Arabic, 
taking a step towards the recess. She was half-way 
across the room and Namlah half dead with terror, when 
Helen gave a piercing cry. 

The lion-cub, roaming about as w r as its wont at dawn, 
had heard its mistress’s voice and, bounding up the steps, 
had hurled itself into the room and on to Helen’s divan. 
After her one cry of fear, she lay quite still, whilst the 
tawny beast, with lashing tail, sniffed at her neck, then 
with a low growl flung itself off the divan and hurled it¬ 
self at Zarah’s feet. 

“A strange place zis, Helena, wiz st-r-range customs 
an’ str-r-ange pets,” said Zarah casually, holding out her 
hand at arm’s length, over which the lion-cub jumped. 

“But is that lion safe?” 

“So far-r-r, yes! When it is not, zen w r e kill it; zose 
zat do not obey do not live long her-r-e. I am sleepy. I 
will go down an’ you will dine wiz me to-night—yes? 
Au revoir! Zink of all I say an’ be wise, zat woman can 
wait.” 

She walked slowly out of the room, taking no notice of 
Al-Asad. 

He came to the doorway and looked in upon the beau¬ 
tiful white girl and frowned as he turned away. 

“ ‘The butcher is not startled by the multiplicity of 
sheep.’ ” He quoted the proverb as he watched the woman 
who had no compassion for her victims, the woman he 
loved, descending the steps, then followed her, her willing 
slave, even to the bringing about of her heart’s desire. 








CHAPTER XI 


“The hole which he made opened into a granary.” 

—Arabic Proverb. 

She did not dine with the Arabian that night nor any 
other night, and when, one evening, some seven days later, 
completely restored to health, she walked out to the edge 
of the platform to ascertain the cause of the shouting 
of men, barking of dogs, and occasional firing of rifles, 
Namlah crept up behind and urged her to go in. 

“Orders have come. Her Excellency is to remain in¬ 
side her chamber until other orders come giving her her 
freedom.” 

“But what is it all about?” inquired Helen, as she re¬ 
luctantly entered her room. 

Namlah spat, or, rather, made a sound as though she 
spat, before replying. 

“Zarah the Merciless makes an excursion into the 
Robaa-el-Khali.” She pointed towards the cleft through 
which the desert in the starlight showed like the face 
of a veiled woman. “Allah grant that she remain there, 
a food for vultures, as have remained so many. She is 
a liar, a thief, a murderess. Allah guide the knife through 
her black heart.” 

A spirit of rebellion, of adventure, of recklessness, 
showed in Helen’s eyes as she questioned the little woman 
who had repeated all she had heard the night she had spied 
through the window and had so urgently counselled silence 
and watchfulness and patience. 

“Yea! Excellency! she leads the men. The men and 
beasts laden with provision and water and ammunition 
wherewith to make a camp between this and the scene 
of the fighting have departed these many hours. Ah! 

138 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 139 

she is as cunning as the jackal. She relies not upon 
chance. She has always a place of refuge to fall back 
on if the fight goes against her, or if the men are in need 
of food for themselves or their guns. How long she will 
be gone? I know not; maybe a few hours, a night, a 
week—w r ho knows?” 

“The Nubian, has he gone too?” 

Namlah laughed shrilly. 

“Ha! the knotter of shoe-strings, the eater of dust, 
behold he has gone these may days upon some secret 
journey. He held conclave of great length with the 
woman who rules us with a rod fashioned in the nether¬ 
most Jahannam. They sat under the starlight so that 
I could not approach, Excellency; they spoke softly so 
that I could not catch their words from the rock behind 
which I lay concealed.” 

She smiled up into Helen’s face when, under the strain 
of the suspense in which she had lived for the last ten 
days, she took the servant by the shoulders and shook 
her none too gently. 

“I can’t bear it much longer, Namlah!” she said in her 
pretty, broken Arabic. “I can’t bear the uncertainty, 
I can’t bear the silence, the waiting, with nothing to do 
to kill the terrible hours. I simply cannot bear it. For 
danger to myself I do not fear, I do not care. Cannot 
I find the w T ay out so that I can escape? Can I not?” 

There was no one in sight, there was certainly no one 
within hearing, up there in the eyrie so near the stars, 
but the little woman ran first to the right and then to 
the left and then into the room before she sidled up to 
Helen and whispered. 

Is not intrigue as the breath of life in the East? 

“Her Excellency must take exercise, must walk under 
the stars to-night whilst she is abroad.” She spread her 
fingers wide and down in the direction of the path leading 
across the quicksands. “Her Excellency must walk, even 
if it be amongst the rocks where the shadows lie blackest.” 






140 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


Helen looked intently at the little woman, who gazed 
out of the doorway with an air of seraphic innocence. 

“I could not find my way down there, Namlah! I 
should fall or get lost or-” 

Namlah trotted to the door and stood with her hand 
shading her eyes, looking out towards the desert. 

“Yet is there one, Excellency, who without eyes walketh 
safely amongst the rocks. One without eyes, but with 
much wisdom upon his tongue and goodness in his heart, 
who walketh ever without fear in the great darkness; 
one who yearneth to help those whose backs have suffered 
from the whip or whose hearts have suffered from the 
power wielded by that daughter of Shaitan!” She crept 
close to Helen and whispered in her ear: “One who like¬ 
wise craveth to hurt, to wound, to kill, in revenge.” 

Helen shivered at the hate in the little woman’s voice, 
but she understood. She had learned the history of the 
blind man from Namlah; once when, restless and unable 
to sleep through anxiety, she had walked out on to the 
platform she had seen him in the grey light of the dawn, 
standing midway on the steps, his face raised to her 
abode; once Namlah had lain a few flowers on the silken 
coverlet, had whispered, “patience brings victory to the 
blind and the prisoner,” and had retired to her pots and 
pans with finger on lips. 

The body-woman walked to the edge of the platform 
and beckoned to the white girl she loved, and pointed to a 
silvery cloud of sand far out in the desert. 

“Yonder she rides,” she whispered. “May the sand 
choke her! May the scorpion sting her heel! May . . . ” 
She smiled up at Helen and shrugged her scarred shoulders 
in the expressive Eastern way. “But of the luck of such, 
Excellency, is it written, ‘throw him into the river and 
he will rise with a fish in his mouth.’ Yet will her turn 
come; the tide cannot remain at the full, the sun must 
set. Behold! I descend to the river, whilst the men and 
women make merry in her absence, to fetch water for her 



ZARAII THE CRUEL 141 

Excellency’s bath, leaving her alone, to walk amongst 
the rocks, in the protection of Allah!” 

Helen watched the little woman descend the steep steps, 
balancing a great earthenware jar skilfully upon her 
head; noticed that she stopped for a moment near one 
gigantic boulder which lay to the right of the steps; 
listened to her singing as she made the rest of the descent 
down to the water, which looked like a ribbon of silver 
run through a purple velvet curtain, then entered the 
room, which was really a prison cell, pulled a sheet of 
dark blue silk from her bed, and ran out on to the ledge. 

She did not hesitate. 

That the woman might be a spy did not once enter her 
head, and if it had, under the strength of her love and 
her anxiety, she would doubtlessly have thrown caution 
to the soft night wind and risked her life in an endeavour 
to find out if there was not some way of escape by which 
she could return to the man she loved. 

Her own clothes, cleansed and pressed by Namlah’s 
busy fingers, had been returned to her, so that she stood, 
a beautiful picture of an English girl, in the strangest 
of strange surroundings, looking down into the shadows 
out of which, she prayed, help might come to her. 

Afraid of her outline against the sky, fearful of dis¬ 
lodging some stone to send it clattering down the steps, 
she wrapped the blue sheet round herself and descended 
slowly, carefully, pausing to listen, standing to peer into 
the ink-black shadows on every side, and down to the 
plateau where, by the light of torches and of fires, she 
could see men and women passing to and fro. 

She had almost reached the great boulder, when she 
stopped and drew the dark silk still tighter and peered 
about uneasily, as she tried to locate a soft hissing sound 
which came from some spot quite near to her. 

Through bitter experience she had learned the ways of 
Arabia’s scorpions, centipedes, wasps and flies; had fled 
in terror from the one and only aboo hanekein she had 


142 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


encountered, a fat, poisonous brute of a spider with 
formidable pincers, and wrestled vainly against the great 
variety of ants which the Peninsula offers; of locusts she 
had but the slightest acquaintance, and of the deadly 
vipers, the RuJda and the Afar, which abound in rocks 
she had only been warned that afternoon. 

Yet for fear of someone mounting the steps she dared 
not remain where she was, and had just decided to risk 
the few yards which would bring her to the boulder, 
when once more she caught the hissing sound. 

And then from sheer relief she almost laughed. 

/’’ whispered Yussuf from the shadows. “ Ya Sit! 

sur 

She crept forward and round the boulder to where stood 
the blind man, who had been perfectly aware of her noise¬ 
less descent. She did not shrink at the terrible face, 
twisted and scarred, which looked down upon her; rather 
did her heart go out to the maimed man as she laid her 
hand upon his arm and called him by name. 

“I trust you, Yussuf,” she said simply, which is quite 
one of the best ways of winning the heart of an embittered 
man. 

“Her Excellency can trust me!” whispered Yussuf as 
he salaamed. “Namlah and I are brother and sister in 
affliction. I have lost the light of these mine eyes, she 
has lost the light of her life, her son, in the grievous 
battle. To ease our hurts we seek to help thee, gracious 
lady, so that upon her return the woman who rules us 
may find ashes in the taste of her victory and gall in 
the wine of her success. The plans are laid, have been 
laid this long while. I will carry her Excellency over the 
secret path and out into the desert, then will I return 
for Namlah and the camels, which are hidden and waiting 
these many hours, the swiftest and most docile hejeen in 
the stables.” 

“Now? At once?” asked Helen, trembling with excite¬ 
ment. “But how can you guide us across the desert?” 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


143 


“Thy servant rides by the wind.” He lifted his sight¬ 
less face to the star-strewn sky and smiled. “ ’Tis from 
the east, Sit. Let it blow in our faces, and we go towards 
the east until the sun sets after the passing of two days, 
then we go north upon the path to Hutah, passing the 
field of the battle where the accursed offspring of the devil 
lifted the white woman.” 

Overpowered with gratitude, almost speechless with 
amazement as the weight of her fear was lifted from her, 
Helen trembled under the shock of the sudden realiza¬ 
tion of her hopes and, desirous that he should share in 
her happiness, caught the man’s hand in entreaty. 

“You will come with us? You will let me and his 
Excellency, the man I am going to marry, look after you, 
make you happy, make you forget, you and Namlah?” 
She laughed softly, aglow with love and hope. “Gratitude 
is a small, a very small, word, Yussuf, and it cannot ex¬ 
press what I would say in thanks.” 

Yussuf smiled as he shook his head. Such words were 
rare in his ears; of such brotherly love, excepting for 
that in his own heart, he had had no knowledge. 

“I will take thee, Sit, to within sight of the oasis, then 
must I return. My task is not finished, will not be finished, 
until the spirit of Zarah the Cruel has returned to the 
Jahannam from which it came. We must hasten by a path 
known only to me. I will lift her Excellency over the 
rough places and carry her safely across the parts where 
danger lies. The way is open, the night is clear, we-” 

He stopped abruptly at the sound of voices raised in 
anger, and feeling for Helen, gripped her tight about the 
wrist. 

Namlah’s voice seemed to rise in a screaming crescendo, 
in ratio to the steps she climbed, accompanied or followed 
by someone upon whom she poured out the vials of her 
wrath. 

“Nay! thou wine-bibber,” she shrilled. “What if thy 
mistress did place the safekeeping of the white woman 




144 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


in thy useless hands? Nay! thou shalt not push me to 
the side of this accursed path so that thy legs, which may 
Allah strike with numbness, may carry thee with speed 
to the post thou didst forget in thy drunkenness. Keep 
thou behind me, lest I break the jar upon thy empty 
head and waste the precious water upon thy unclean body, 
which is fit carrion for the birds of prey. What sayest 
thou? Thou wouldst but look upon the white woman? 
So that thou mayst see her with thine own eyes? Verily 
shalt thou, if thou canst see for the wine with which thou 
hast filled thy vile and accursed body.” 

Yussuf lifted Helen bodily into his arms. 

“ ‘If thou seest a wall inclining, run from under it.’ ” 
He quoted the proverb as he carried her swiftly up the 
mountainside by a steep short cut, as sure-footed as a 
goat, as certain of his path as if he had eyes. “It is 
not the hour, but let her Excellency remember that Yussuf 
is her servant in all things.” He put her gently on her 
feet upon a ledge from which she could climb to the plat¬ 
form. “Remember, too, that when the hour does strike, 
then will Yussuf strike also. ‘Patience brings victory to 
the blind and to the prisoner.’ ” 

A few moments later Helen stood just inside the door¬ 
way, listening to the violent altercation upon the 
steps. 

The-re came the crash of a breaking jar, torrents of 
execration and imprecation, then silence, and, in spite of 
her disappointment, she smiled as she watched Namlah, 
slowly and with much dignity, climbing the steps, with 
a dripping wet individual in the rear. 

“Seest thou the white woman with thine own eyes? 
Yea! Then sit thou there, thou dog!” cried Namlah at 
the top of her voice. “Nay, upon the second step. 
Wouldst force thy company upon thy betters? And may 
Allah strike thee with cold for having forgotten thy duty 
to thy mistress, so that thou diest of palsy before the 
dawn.” 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


145 


There was a twinkle of laughter in the depths of the 
brown eyes as she combed the prisoner’s golden hair. 

Is not intrigue as the breath of life to the Oriental? 

* * * # * 

“He swims in a span of water .”— Arabic Proverb. 

At that very hour Al-Asad, disguised as a holy man, 
sat in the camp of the Bedouins who had befriended Ralph 
Trenchard. 

True, the holy man’s body was somewhat well covered, 
as though he had not unduly deprived himself of food 
in the ecstasy of his religion, and his feet in fairly good 
trim, considering the length of the pilgrimage he was 
making on foot to Mecca; also, upon close inspection, 
might the rents in his one garment be attributed to a blunt 
knife rather than to time. 

But there are many kinds of holy men criss-crossing 
desert places, depending entirely upon the charity "of 
chance-met Arabs for sustenance and the will of Allah 
for a safe arrival at their journey’s end. The tattered 
handkerchief fluttering from the end of the staff can be 
traced by the keen-eyed, approaching or retreating, for 
miles in the desert’s clear atmosphere, and heartbeats 
never fail to quicken at the chance encounter with the 
solitary human who wends his way across the burning 
sands, alone with his God. 

As to others, so to Ralph Trenchard, sitting outside 
his tent, came that feeling of great respect which the 
sudden appearance of these mystics arouses in those who 
have the wherewithal to allay their hunger, and a place 
upon which to lay their heads at night; and with the 
respect, a great curiosity to read the secrets of a mind 
which allows so emaciated a body to endure and survive 
days of endless wandering and starvation and nights 
under heaven’s starlit roof. Al-Asad sat motionless, his 
eyes fixed upon space, whilst his stomach rebelled against 





146 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


the rice in the wooden bowl at his feet, and his whole 
being longed to get back to the spot, in the far distance, 
where he had hobbled his well-laden camel. 

Fearful of news of his search being transmitted through 
space to the ears of those he sought, he had been forced 
to act up to his disguise and to travel many weary, sandy 
miles on foot to various Bedouin camps, and to eat 
many bowls of insipid rice, washed down his gasping 
throat with muddy coffee, whilst abstracting the news 
he wanted from his unsuspicious host by subtle ques¬ 
tioning. 

He had rejoiced to the innermost part of his being 
when, whilst humbly asking alms from the Bedouin chief, 
he had seen Ralph Trenchard out of the corner of his 
eye. 

His quest was at an end. He had but to get into 
communication in some way with the white man and arouse 
his interest, then leave the rest to the foolishness of a 
race which, as his mistress had told him, taught its men 
to look upon women as an almost sacred charge. He 
rose, and with hands uplifted turned to the four quarters 
of the globe, his keen eyes sweeping the camp for sign 
of the lynx-eyed Abdul, whilst the Bedouins drew back 
out of respect for his holiness. 

On catching sight of the servant at the back of his 
master’s tent, Al-Asad squatted upon his haunches and 
muttered to himself, letting the beads of Mecca run swiftly 
through his fingers whilst his crafty mind searched for 
the best way to start the business without arousing the 
servant’s suspicions. 

He scraped up the last handful of rice, being careful 
not to leave one single grain, and forced it down his 
rebelling throat, then rose and crossed slowly to a black 
patch of shadow, in which he sat himself, well aware 
that the eyes of the whole camp, especially those of the 
white man, were upon him. He sat motionless for awhile 
as though in thanksgiving for the nauseating meal, then 




ZARAH THE CRUEL 147 

made a gesture, upon which, with little cries and great 
jostling, the whole camp, men, women and many children, 
crowded about him, then, with the chief in the centre, sat 
themselves down in a semicircle at the respectful distance 
demanded by the holy one’s piety. 

Ralph Trenchard strolled to the extreme end of the 
right side of the semicircle. He was wholly restored 
to health, a prey to intense anxiety, and upon the eve 
of his departure for Hutah, where he intended calling 
upon the aid of the entire Peninsula for the recovery 
of Helen, and felt thankful for anything which might 
serve to distract his tormented mind. Abdul gave a final 
look round his master’s tent, which consisted of camel- 
skins thrown over four upright poles, and ran quickly 
to his master’s side. 

He had done his best to dissuade his master from the 
rash proceeding of trying to discover her Excellency’s 
whereabouts, had preached the doctrine of fatalism as 
known in the East, and had at last resigned himself to 
the inevitable and sworn, in the secret places of his 
faithful heart, to stick to the white man through thick 
and thin. 

The visit of a holy man creates a welcome diversion in a 
camp where meals of dates, muddy coffee, and, if luck 
is in, a sickly mess of boiled camel flesh as piece de re¬ 
sistance form the only break in the long, monotonous 
hours when fighting is not toward; the advent of a holy 
man who deigned to open his lips except in prayer was 
to be reckoned a miracle. 

Abdul moved close to Ralph Trenchard at the holy 
one’s first words. 

“Are any of thy children wounded, O my Son?” The 
words came faint and slow, as though spoken by one who 
had almost lost the power of speech. “I have with me 
an ointment of great power.” Al-Asad searched amongst 
his rags and produced an alabaster pot, which had once 
contained rouge and had been bought by Zarah in Cairo, 











148 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


but which now reeked to high heaven of rancid camel fat 
mixed with aniseed. 

“Nay! Father!” replied the chief, whilst his children 
whispered amongst themselves. “Those that were wounded 
are healed, those that were sick are recovered. Why- 
fore asketh thou? How knowest thou that they have been 
in battle?” 

Al-Asad barely suppressed a chuckle as he pressed the 
lid down upon the distressing concoction and stored it 
once more about his person. He made no answer. He 
sat motionless, as though lost in meditation, until Ralph 
Trenchard could have fallen upon and shaken him back 
to a consciousness of his surroundings. 

“A moon ago I prayed upon the site of a great battle, 
O my Son!” murmured Al-Asad slowly, after some long 
while and as though he had but just heard the question. 
“There was naught but bones and this.” He once more 
searched amongst his rags and looked at some object, 
which he did not disclose to view, and took no notice of 
a quickly suppressed movement at the right end of the 
circle as Abdul gripped Ralph Trenchard by the arm. 
“I have asked those I have met upon my path if they 
knew aught about that combat. Nay, my Son! interrupt 
me not, the hour is slipping into eternity and I must 
be gone.” The chief, who had been anxious to tell w r hat 
he knew of the fight from personal experience, bowed in 
obedience and spread his hands. “It was a fight between 
white men and the woman of whose dire deeds the desert 
rings. All were killed but a white woman, wdio, grievously 
w r ounded and nigh unto death, was made prisoner and 
taken to the mountains known as the Sanctuary, which 
lie but a day’s journey and a night’s journey to the south 
of the spot where they fought, and where dwells the woman 
of evil repute.” 

He rose as he spoke, standing a dim and arresting figure 
in the shadows, and stretched out his hand. 

“This I perceived glittering in the sun, midway between 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


149 


the mountains and the battlefield, upon a path marked 
in the sand by the swift passing of two camels. It is of 
too great a value for one who lives upon the words of the 
Prophet of Allah, the one and only God. Perchance wilt 
thou, my son, take it in return for thy charity to the 
humble pilgrim.” 

He placed the locket in the chief’s hands, and in the 
scramble of the entire camp to get a better view of the 
gift, crept behind the tent and disappeared into the night, 
where, once sure that he was beyond the chief’s range of 
vision, he emulated the ostrich in speed until he reached 
the spot where he had left his well-laden camel. 


CHAPTER XII 


“This is not the bishop’s square .”— Arabic Proverb. 

Abdul removed the locust from his bowl, laid it on one 
side with three of its brethren for future consumption, 
and looked at Ralph Trenchard, who sat, eating his even¬ 
ing meal, some yards away. Then he wet his finger and 
held it up, frowned, looked across the red sand ridges 
and over to the scene of the disastrous battle, and shook 
his head. 

“Bad!” he said, removing yet another locust from his 
shoulder. “Bad locust, bad wind from the east, bad omen 
of death.” He spread his fingers against the power of 
dead bones and, a victim of superstition, twisted himself 
round from north to south as he sat. “All bad for the 
beginning of a second journey into this bad desert.” 

He placed an iron plate, spread with camel fat, to 
heat upon the top of the up-to-date brazier, which was the 
joy of his life, spread a thin layer of dough made of 
durra upon it, and whilst waiting for it to brown, pre¬ 
pared the five large, dark locusts for frying, praying 
inwardly that his master would reject the succulent 
savoury. 

“Five!” he commented, as he salted the insects and 
rolled them up in the thin, buttered cake. “Praise be 
to Allah that we have one good omen. Ai! Six, nay, 
seven.” He plucked two more from his skirts, and, fear¬ 
ful of finding the eighth, which would bring the ill-luck 
of an even number, ran swiftly across to his master with 
his offering. 

For two reasons Ralph Trenchard turned the savoury 
over with his fork. He had just finished an excellently 

150 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


151 


cooked meal of a highly spiced variety of the ubiquitous 
samli broth, and as highly spiced and as excellently cooked 
partridge, and a handful of dates; also had he become 
extremely suspicious of any fresh addition to the larder 
and of any new culinary effort on the part of his 
servant. 

He refused the crisp, well-browned roll at first, then, 
thinking it only kind to reward the man for his devotion, 
bit off an end and finished the lot. 

“Topping, Abdul! I’ll have one every day. What’s 
it made of?” 

Abdul hid his hands in his sleeves as he lied with the 
ease which comes from long practice. 

“Little bits of meat and fat and vegetables fried in 
butter, Excellency. The servant is rewarded by the light 
of pleasure in his master’s eye.” 

Ralph Trenchard rose and shook himself. 

“We’d better be starting, Abdul,” he said, flicking a 
locust from his sleeve. “The journey of a day and the 
journey of a night, that means the journey of two nights 
as we cannot travel in the sun, and then—and then I 
shall know, I shall be certain. And look here, my friend, 
don’t you go cooking any of these disgusting beasts and 
serving them up as fried dates or something.” 

He plucked one of the disgusting beasts from his shirt 
sleeve and flung it away, then looked at his servant, who 
stood motionless, a cloud of despondency dimming the 
habitually merry countenance. 

“Well? And what’s the matter now? Have the camels 
stampeded or the water-skins burst?” 

Abdul suddenly knelt and touched the ground with 
his forehead. 

“Give ear unto thy servant, O master! Hasten not 
the journey, linger yet one more night and yet one more 
day. The omens are not propitious for the starting. We 
are surrounded by death, by the bones of our brethren. 
The east blows the wind from her mouth and from the 



152 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


north comes a puff of breath, so that the wind will blow 
slantwise towards the west and the south.” 

“Well? Why not? As long as it doesn’t blow straight 
from the south like a furnace, I should say that we ought 
to be jolly well pleased.” 

Abdul gathered three locusts from the ground, stored 
them surreptitiously in his voluminous sleeve, and rose 
to his feet, then walked close up to Ralph Trenchard, 
salaamed, and clasped his hands in fervent beseeching. 

“These few disgusting beasts, O Excellency, are the 
forerunners, maybe, of a great storm of many disgusting 
beasts, which in time of stress or famine are thankfully 
eaten by the Arab and the camel. If the wind were other¬ 
wise set, Excellency, if it were but the locust wind from 
the east unto the west, then would I cry haste, haste, 
so that we should pass on and leave the storm behind. 
But, Excellency, the puff of breath from the north will 
cause the disgusting beasts to follow us even southwards, 
so that we are like to drown in a sea of crawling, dis¬ 
gusting beasts, or to flee before them into the heart of the 
bad desert, there to be fallen upon by the evil spirits which 
dwell therein. Excellency, the omens are bad. The locust 
is bad, the wind is bad, likewise the bones, and”—he 
paused to allow the dread of the last and worst omen 
to sink thoroughly into the white man’s mind—“and the 
servant’s camel has pulled the amulet of good luck from 
about the neck of the master’s camel and”—followed an¬ 
other pause for the same good purpose—“has eaten it!” 

Ralph Trenchard laughed heartily, being one of the 
thrice blessed few who are absolutely free from the faintest 
trace of superstition, the greatest curse of modern days. 

“Look here, Abdul.” He put his hand on the faithful 
man’s shoulder and turned him in the direction of the 
south. “Not so very far ahead, in an almost straight 
line from here, is the range of mountains in which the 
woman Zarah dwells. . . .” Abdul spat with vindic¬ 
tive vigour in a southward direction. “That woman has 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


153 


knowledge of her Excellency, who is to be my wife. . . 
Abdul, remembering the holy man’s statement about her 
Excellency’s health, spread his fingers westward in the 
direction of the bones glistening on the battlefield. “And 
if you think locusts or bones or amulet-eating camels can 
prevent me from starting when I said we w r ould start, 
and that is in an hour’s time, then are you thrice mis¬ 
taken. . . .” Abdul pushed one of the disgusting beasts, 
afflicted with an inclination to stray, back into his sleeve. 
“And I should advise you, my son, to heave those thoughts 
out of your mind or you’ll have us wading up to our 
necks in locusts, or the bones getting up and following 
us, or the camels bursting from an overdose of good 
luck. Besides, remember your prophecy about the holy 
man, who, you said, was a bad holy man. He hasn’t 
brought us bad luck so far. You were mistaken, and 
you were, and you are , afraid and . . .” 

There was a limit to Abdul’s capacity for holding his 
tongue. He made finger gestures towards the four 
quarters of the globe, then shook his fist in the direction 
where lay the Bedouin camp which they had left behind 
many days ago. 

“Mistaken! O master! Mistaken! Why did the holy 
man run, run like the ostrich, so that the marks of his 
holy feet showed hardly upon the soft sand? Why did 
I, thy servant, find the footmarks of a camel far out 
in the desert just where the feet of the holy man made 
no more marks upon the sand?” 

“I expect someone w T as waiting to give him a lift, 
Abdul.” 

“Then why not lift him to the gate of the Bedouin 
camp, O my master?” 

Ralph Trenchard took his servant by the shoulder 
and turned him in the direction where lay the camels. 

“I expect he didn’t want the others to know that he 
was living in the lap of luxury, my son. Go and eat, 
because I am coming to overhaul everything and see that 




154 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


all is shipshape before we start on the last bit of the 
journey, at the end of which this uncertainty will be 
lifted from me.” 

In spite of its pleasantry, Abdul recognized the one 
tone in his master’s voice which always caused him to 
obey with alacrity. 

He salaamed and departed to do his master’s bidding, 
gathering a good sleeveful of locusts as he went, and sat, 
making finger gestures towards the east and returning 
thanks to Allah for the tasty addition to the meal, while 
the disgusting beasts browned nicely upon the iron plate 
spread with camel fat. 

But a few hours later he turned in his saddle, then 
raised his hands to the heavens, which showed black as 
with thunder towards the east. 

“May Allah burn them with the fire of His wrath! 
May His right hand crush the life from them! May He 
speak words of anger so that they are swept from the 
white man’s path.” 

From his seat upon the first of seven camels he looked 
at Ralph Trenchard, who rode at his side, and back along 
the six beasts which, fastened muzzle to scrimpy tail by 
rope, had leisurely followed each other up and down the 
great ridges, whilst the menacing cloud spread rapidly 
across the sky. 

Ralph Trenchard turned and looked back. 

“I am sorry I have been the cause of your getting into 
this frightful danger, Abdul,” he said quietly. “Still, I 
have been in tighter corners than this and won out, so 
we won’t despair. You see, the swarm may pass well 
over our heads as there is nothing green for it to settle 
on within miles. Besides, if we had stayed where we 
were it would have been the same thing. We haven’t 
got so very far from the camp. Still, I’m sorry, and 
I ” 

The rest of the sentence was jerked from him as his 
camel stumbled to its knees, half rose, fell, and with an 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


155 


infuriated scream got to its feet with the curious back 
jump exclusive to a fallen camel. They proceeded in 
silence for almost a quarter of a mile, when there came 
a shout from Abdulfewhich was lost in a chorus of shrieks 
and groans and lamentations from the string, as the 
middle camel crashed, pulling its brother behind to its 
knees by the rope attached to its halter, and its sister 
in front to a sitting position by the rope attached to her 
skimpy tail, until at last the seven beasts sprawled upon 
the ground. 

Ralph Trenchard followed Abdul’s pointing finger. 
Lost in his thoughts and without looking at the ground 
over which he travelled, he had passed up and down 
the ridges which were soon to end in a great flat 
space. He looked down now, and shuddered at the sight. 
A thin layer of brown and crawling locusts lay upon the 
sands as far as eye could see—a terrible, living sheet of 
slipperiness upon which no biped or quadruped could hope 
to remain upright for long. He did not hesitate. He 
shook out the feet-long leather thong of the camel-whip 
and flicked the sides of the nearest fallen camel, against 
which was already forming a drift of locusts. And as the 
camel tried to rise he flicked the others, whilst Abdul alter¬ 
nately shouted encouragement and prayed to Allah. And 
when at last the beasts had been forced to their feet, to 
stand indifferent and contemptuous, he took his camel 
slowly across to where Abdul sat upon the leader and 
looked him in the face, whilst locusts, hurled by the ever- 
increasing wind, rattled like hailstones upon his topee, 
and caught and clung and crawled over his shirt and 
breeches and over his servant’s robes. 

“You must decide, Abdul,” he said quietly. “You be¬ 
long to the desert. You have seen a locust storm many 
times. Do we go forward or back, or do we stay here and 
wait, praying that it will pass before we die of suffoca¬ 
tion?” 

Abdul did not hesitate. Already the insects had covered 


156 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


the camels* feet and were clinging in bunches to their 
sides; already the camels were moaning like children in 
pain, a sure sign that fear utterly possessed them and 
that panic pressed them close. 

“We will move forward. And will his Excellency fasten 
his shirt lest the disgusting beasts crawl about his per¬ 
son. We are in the hands of Allah, O my master, and 
we must follow the path marked out for us, even if it 
be spread with a carpet of locusts. The heart of the 
storm has not yet reached us. Kismet! it is the will of 
Allah. Forward, my master, for that way the future 
always lies.” 

Inch by inch, with the leather-thonged whip curling 
backwards and forwards over the string, and Abdul alter¬ 
nately shouting encouragement, praying to Allah, and 
calling upon the aid of the great Prophet, the camels 
climbed the next ridge, which rose high above its fellows 
owing to a mass of volcanic rock beneath it, whilst the 
locust cloud spread across the heavens. With its forefeet 
just over the edge on the downward steep descent, Ralph 
Trenchard’s camel slipped, threw him clear over its head 
down to the bottom of the dip, then followed in a series of 
terrible somersaults, to collapse at the bottom with a 
broken neck. 

“Don’t get down, Abdul! For God’s sake, don’t get 
down!” shouted Ralph Trenchard as he scrambled to 
his feet just as the seven in a string, well back on their 
haunches, slid down safely to the bottom, the ridge mean¬ 
while growing higher and higher as the locusts piled upon 
it. “I’ll cut you loose and take the second camel; it’s got 
two water-skins. You’ve got to take one—we’ll fix it on 
somehow.” He hacked at the rope which fastened Abdul’s 
camel to the second, then cut through the rope connecting 
the second and third; unfastened the water-skins, pulled 
the pack off the second camel, wrenched the saddle from 
the dead beast, and handed it up to Abdul, who threw it 
across the other camel’s back. 



157 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

“Jam the brute against the side, Abdul, I’m going un¬ 
derneath. Tight, that’s it, don’t let it move. That’s it. 
Fling the off-strap further over. My God! That’s it! 
I’ve done it. Keep him jammed, I’m getting the water¬ 
skins on. Oh! my God! one’s burst; one of those fiends 
has driven its teeth into it. Fasten this one to your 
saddle—d’you hear what I say? fasten it—I’ve got my 
water-bottle and—you’ll get the whip across your back 
if you don’t—I’m going to tighten the strap—jam him 
still, I’m coming out—you can give me a leg up—I— 
my . . Abdul bent and hauled him up as he crept 

from under the camel’s belly and almost threw him into 
the saddle. 

“Come ! Master, come ! hasten ! The camels fight, they 
are mad with fear; they kill all they see when mad. Nay, 
master, be not so mad thyself. What matter if they 
be bound together? They are but camels, and thou, O 
master, art a son of God! Turn thy camel, Excellency.” 

But the camels would not turn. True, they backed 
in their fear of the other five, which, fastened together, 
shrieked and fought, tore and snarled, as they vainly 
tried to climb out of the dip in which the stream of 
locusts was rising inch by inch; but get them round they 
could not, however hard they pulled at their cast-iron 
mouths and struck them on the off shoulder. 

Then Abdul yelled and tore off his outer cloak, sitting 
breathless, in voluminous drawers and vest, ready for 
the onslaught. The five camels, hopelessly fastened to¬ 
gether, had straightened themselves out. The first, clean 
mad with fear, had seen two of its own kind standing 
quietly a little way ahead. For a second it stood quite 
still, excepting for its head, which swung from side to 
side, with great eyes rolling and long tongue hanging 
from the foam-flecked mouth, then it shrieked, shrieked 
as only a camel can, and charged, dragging the others, 
which rocked from side to side. They slipped and fell, 
and scrambled to their feet under the spur of the terrible 








158 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


teeth which met in the hindquarters and the agony of the 
ropes which lashed muzzle and tail together. 

The foremost saw the open space on the waiting camel’s 
off-side and made for it, blindly, drew level with Abdul 
and swung its head viciously sideways, to find itself 
enveloped in the man’s coat. Followed a frightful scene, 
in which it stood quite still, lost in the darkness which 
had suddenly overtaken it, whilst the other four rushed 
backwards and forwards and swung themselves round 
until they jammed in a fighting circle. 

“Quick, master! Now! Follow! Allah protect thee 
in this corner of Jahamman! Fear at last moves my 
Satan-possessed beast; may Allah cause it to burn in the 
nethermost pit!” The faithful man leant over and gripped 
the halter and wrenched Ralph Trenchard’s camel round 
as his own turned. “We will go apace! We will . . 

His words were lost in the screaming of the five camels, 
as the foremost, freed of the cloak, suddenly charged up 
the side of the ridge. Up, up, almost to the top, pulling 
its companions after it, up to the edge where the locusts 
lay thick, then down, over and over, with its fellow 
prisoners fighting, struggling, screaming, back to the bot¬ 
tom of the dip, where ’tis wise to leave them to the mercy 
of Allah. 

The two men urged their camels swiftly from the ter¬ 
rible sight, whilst with a soft pliit-pliit-phit the locusts 
fell upon each other with the sound of raindrops upon 
glass. The sky was black with them; they swept above 
their heads with the whistling sound of a tropical hail 
storm. 

“We will stay here, master, if it be the will of Allah! 
We will throw the disgusting beasts out as they fill in 
the space about us. Thou art white and I am black, 
yet are we brothers in distress and in the sight of Allah.” 

Ralph Trenchard held out his hand, which Abdul just 
touched as he salaamed. 

But it was not the will of Allah that they should remain 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


159 


to die, perhaps of suffocation, in the dip filled with locusts; 
it was His will, perchance, that they should make a last 
fight for life, which is good when filled with love, love 
of the woman, love of the master, love of the brother and 
friend. 

Abdul turned for one moment to secure the water-skins 
more firmly upon his saddle, when his camel stampeded, 
rushing blindly ahead for no good reason, as is the custom 
of the brutes. Followed by Ralph Trenchard’s, it turned 
sharply and scrambled to the top of the ridge, where 
the men bent double to save their faces from the driving 
locust rain, 

“Master!” 

Ralph Trenchard heard his servant’s voice as his camel 
turned and fled along the top of the ridge until it was 
swallowed up in the locust storm. “Abdul!” he called, 
covering his face with his arm, “God keep . . He 
beat the insects off his shoulders, beat them off as they 
piled thickly behind him on the saddle, paused for a 
moment in the ghastly w r ork as a faint “Allah!” came 
to him from somewhere out of the dark, then beat at the 
horrible things which crawled all over him with a sickening 
scratching of their scaly bodies. The camel, crazed with 
the things which covered it as with a coat of mail, slid, 
shrieking, down the side of the ridge and scrambled up 
the farther side, and down and up the next, and yet the 
next. Ralph Trenchard, with his feet crossed round the 
pommel of his saddle, bent his head to his knees and rode 
for mile after mile, clutching the tufts of coarse hair upon 
the camel’s shoulder, whilst the locusts piled up on his 
back and neck. 

Why should he try to stop the camel? Why should he 
get down? Why should he not go on and on for ever 
riding, riding through an endless desert of swarming, 
crawling, creeping locusts, which stretched across the 
heavens and the earth from north to south, from east to 
w T est? Was it not the will of Allah? Was not . . .? Up 



160 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


he went and down, hanging on to the coarse hair just 
above the camel’s shoulders, up and down, and then on 
and on, evenly, smoothly, whilst the locusts whistled like 
a tropical hailstorm and the sky lighted way down in the 
east as the great curtain of insects swept towards and 
away to the west. 

And he went on and on, shuddering* under the feeling of 
the locusts crawling over him when they had long since 
taken flight, leaving him and his camel free; on and on 
through the journey of the scorching day which followed 
the journey of the night, and still onward in the way 
which was to lead him to certain knowledge of the girl 
he loved; on and on, with his head bent to his knees and 
his hands clutching the coarse hair, mercifully uncon¬ 
scious at last. 

On and on, until a range of mountains showed faintly 
in the far distance and the sun went down behind it, just 
as, many miles away, two Arabs, journeying towards the 
Oasis of Hareek, drew Abdul out from under his dead 
camel and, finding that he breathed, straightened the 
broken leg between improvised splints, and placed him 
gently upon the third camel, which carried all their 
worldly belongings. 


CHAPTER XIII 


“Under every downhanging head dwells a thousand 
mischiefs ”— Arabic Proverb. 

Namlah had been superseded. 

No suspicion whatever attached to her, but, whether 
her curses had been too potent or the blow of the v ater- 
jar too much for him, the man who had partaken of much 
good red wine the night of Helen’s attempted escape had 
died. 

That, in connexion with certain gossip concerning 
Namlah’s friendship and enthusiastic praise of the white 
woman, decided Zarah. She sent her packing, without 
warning, and in her stead put a villainously ugly, surly 
negress incapable of speech, much less of a kind thought 
or deed, who proceeded to follow the prisoner at a distance 
wherever she went, thereby rendering speech with blind 
Yussuf impossible. 

Knowing that Helen must pass the great rock on her 
way down to the river to bathe, as was her custom just 
after sunrise, Yussuf sat himself down in its shadow the 
morning after Namlah’s dismissal, with intent to tell 
the prisoner the reason for the change in the body-woman 
and to warn her to be on her guard. He lifted his head 
at the sound of her footsteps, then frowned, though no 
one else could possibly have discerned the other almost 
noiseless tread made by bare feet, one of which pressed 
the ground more heavily than the other. 

Judging correctly the distance between the two women, 
he put his finger to his lips and whispered “ A’ti balak ” 
as he salaamed. 

Be careful! 


161 




162 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


The change in her body-woman, combined with Yussuf’s 
warning, caused Helen’s anxiety to increase, until her 
days became a burden of suspense and her nights a night¬ 
mare of troubled dreams in which she saw her lover lying 
dead or wounded in the desert or a prisoner in the hands 
of some lawless tribe. 

She would not allow herself to think of her position 
nor of her future, but she made a vow in the depths of 
her valiant heart that, no matter what was in store for 
her, no matter how the Arabian might cajole or threaten, 
she would not show a sign of the anxiety which consumed 
her, nor write a word of the letter which she knew would 
bring her lover, if he lived, hot-foot, to her. 

Then Zarah, who had not given, up hopes of getting 
the letter from the girl and who waited for the return of 
Al-Asad from his quest, showed herself suddenly friendly, 
and Helen gladly responded to her invitations, to visit the 
kennels and the stables and the rest of the erstwhile 
monastery. 

True, she had been forbidden to wander amongst the 
rocks or to climb to the beginning of’the. cleft or to ride 
either horse or camel; true, also, that the surly negress 
followed her wherever she went, so that, in spite of the 
extra liberty, she felt herself more closely guarded and 
more carefully watched than even Still, the days passed 
more quickly and her friends amongst the dogs and their 
grooms became almost too numerous to be counted. 

Upon her first visit to the kennels, unaccompanied by 
Zarah, the head groom, who worshipped the dogs, reluc¬ 
tantly offered her the whip without which his mistress 
would not enter the door when upon her visits of inspec¬ 
tion. 

“What for?” asked Helen, as she looked over his should 
der to where the famous greyhounds and the dogs of 
Billi stood watching her. 

“Out of fear, Excellency; they may be dangerous. 5 * 

“Fear of what ? 55 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


163 

The head groom did not reply, but spread his fingers 
in a gesture against the evil memory of the woman the 
dogs hated, and rushed to save Helen from them when, 
barking and leaping, they threw themselves upon her in 
instant friendliness in response to her call. 

In the days following she visited the kennels upon every 
possible occasion, until even Radi, the bitch, fawned at 
her feet in love and the grooms ran to greet her at the 
kennel door. 

Through the order forbidding her to ride, the grooms 
of the horse and camel stables became smitten of a griev¬ 
ous jealousy as they listened to the tales of the white 
woman’s graciousness recounted to them by the head 
groom of the kennels. 

“Dogs! Yea! perchance she has knowledge of the 
dog, but ride! pah! O brother, what knows she of the 
NejdeeP What would she avail against the vagaries of 
the desert horse?” 

“Wilt thou make a bet, O my brother?” 

Which is a perfectly absurd question to ask an Arab, 
w T ho will gamble with his last coffee bean if he has nothing 
of more value in hand. 

The bet spread, dividing the camp into two factions 
which were ready to fight over it upon the slightest prov¬ 
ocation. The grooms of the stables were backed by their 
friends; the grooms of the kennels had an equal following; 
they all showed a catholic and reckless taste in stakes, 
which ranged from marriageable daughters, through 
money, jewellery and w r eapons, down to emaciated 
poultry. 

News of the bet came to Zarah’s ears the day upon 
which Al-Asad returned with the report that Ralph 
Trenchard was safe, had started for the Sanctuary ac¬ 
companied by one Abdul, and had been sighted near the 
scene of the battle, which meant that he was but a day’s 
journey behind. 

She cursed in her heart that interest in Helen should 


164 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


have been aroused at such an inauspicious moment, then 
instantly, little knowing that the girl’s horsemanship 
equalled, even surpassed, her own, conceived a diabolically 
cunning plan by which she could bring about her death 
before Ralph Trenchard’s arrival, and without, withal, 
arousing suspicion amongst the men. 

Helen wanted to ride, the men wanted her to ride; 
well, ride she should, and to her death. 

Lulah, the black mare, had been pronounced untamable. 
Descendant of the mare who had brought the Sheikh to 
safety, likewise descendant of the mare who had been the 
cause of Yussuf’s blindness, she was as black of temper as 
she was of coat. 

Three people out of the whole camp had been able to 
ride her the entire length of the plateau. 

Zarah, Bowlegs, and the Patriarch. 

Not one of the others who had taken the risk even of 
trying to mount her had escaped injury. Each one had 
been thrown, considering himself lucky if he escaped with 
slight concussion; there had been broken bones a-plenty 
and one broken neck. 

That made the beginning and end of the plan. 

If Helen succeeded in getting across the saddle she 
would of necessity be thrown; she must be. She might 
break her neck, in which case all the trouble would be 
over; or she might be stunned, in which case she would 
look like dead, which would serve as well. 

Brigands do not worry themselves overmuch about 
such details as heart-beats; scruples do not exist in a 
jealous woman’s heart. 

Neither was there time to lose. 

She sent for the head groom of the stables. 

“Lulah the Black, mistress?” The man raised a face 
of consternation as Zarah finished speaking. “Mistress, 
she is not fit; she is as wild as a bird on the wing; she 
is possessed of the devil. One of thy slaves even now lies 
sick of the meeting of her teeth in his shoulder.” 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


165 


Zarah put an end to his protestations by the simple 
method of smiting him across the mouth. 

“And I will saddle her with my own hands upon the day 
of sport to-morrow, O my son, and thou shalt hold her 
near me until I give the signal. Likewise shalt thou 
and others make a pretence of mounting her, a pretence 
only. And see that thou makest no mistake, lest thou 
beareth the burden of my litter for a space.” 

The morrow came, bringing a horseman who carried the 
news of the disappearance of the white man and his 
servant in the locust storm. 

In her rage against Fate Zarah decided to counter¬ 
mand the sports; then, fearful of angering her men and 
aching to find an object upon which to vent her fury 
and the agony of as big a love as she was capable, once 
more changed her mind and decided to carry out the pro¬ 
gramme. 

& * * * * 

“Beaten—but to-day beater — Arabic Proverb. 

“The shadow of the great locust storm has fallen upon 
Zarah the Beautiful!” whispered Bowlegs to Yussuf’s 
Eyes as they watched the sports with all the enthusiasm 
and delight of the Arab’s heart, which upon occasion 
can be so childlike. The dumb youth nodded his head 
and smiled and tapped a description of Zarah’s face upon 
his blind friend’s arm, whereupon Yussuf laughed loudly 
and long and rubbed his slender hands together at the 
thought of the Arabian girl’s discontent. 

She reclined in her litter this late afternoon, swung 
upon the shoulders of four prisoners, her face as black 
as thunder; she flung herself irritably from side to side, 
and used her whip smartly upon the backs of the men— 
who had stood in the sun for an hour or so—when, by shift¬ 
ing the litter, they tried to alleviate the pain of the 
wounds it made in their shoulders. 




166 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

It was her favourite form of punishment for trivial 
offences, and she kept Al-Asad, the muscular half-caste, 
close at hand, so that he should be in readiness to take 
the place of the first one of the four who should collapse 
under the combined torture of the heat and the weight 
of the jewel-encrusted ivory litter. She had no reason 
to use the whip upon his back. His mighty muscle made 
nothing of the weight; his negroid blood withstood the 
heat of the sun; his abnormal love caused him to find joy 
in the task, blinding him to the smiles, rendering him deaf 
to the titter which the humiliation of his task invariably 
drew from his friends, who loved the mighty man and 
grieved over his insensate passion. 

She was surrounded by slaves who cast terrified glances 
at her wrathful countenance as they performed their vari¬ 
ous tasks. At her head two Abyssinian maidens, nude 
save for the scarlet sashes which girt them about the 
middle, stood upon low pedestals like glistening black 
statues of Venus, fanning her with fans of snow-white 
ostrich feathers; boys, slim, dark-eyed, with slender hands 
and feet, offered her cool drinks, sweetmeats and fruits 
upon trays of beaten silver; girls, slim, dark-eyed, with 
slender hands and feet, threw perfumed water into the air. 

Helen sat some way off upon a pile of cushions in the 
shade of a rock, making a sharp contrast in her dilapi¬ 
dated but well-built Shantung breeches and knee-length 
coat with the Arabian’s almost barbaric splendour; and 
many a glance was cast at her from the serried ranks 
of men, who looked with interest upon the beautiful white 
prisoner, about whom Namlah had, most unwisely, ecstatic¬ 
ally and so unceasingly talked. 

That morning had come the invitation to witness the 
sports, to which she had responded with alacrity, to find 
herself, of a sudden, the object of interest to many hun¬ 
dreds of men, and a prey to uneasiness at the sight of 
Zarah’s mocking smile and the memory of Yussuf’s 
whispered warning. 


167 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

Her hair shone like gold against the dark rock back¬ 
ground. She laughed at the men’s encounters in the 
“ Jerzed and clapped her hands at their marvellous dex¬ 
terity with spear and rifle and revolver; but she kept 
her eyes away from the spot where the four bare-headed 
men underwent torture in the terrific heat of the sun. 

She had begged Zarah to spare them; she had entreated 
with clasped hands, and with pitying eyes had lain her 
handkerchief upon the nearest wounded shoulder, which 
is a foolish thing for a beautiful girl to do when she is the 
prisoner of a beautiful woman famed for her cruelty 
throughout a land which is not exactly noted for the 
gentleness of its methods. She had retired to the pile of 
cushions and had sat down with eyes averted from the 
terrible picture of the beautiful, insolent woman who had 
imperiously bidden her to mind her own business, and had 
brought her whip down sharply upon the backs of the 
two front, undersized, under-nourished Armenians. 

She sat quite by herself, so that she could not ask the 
meaning of the mighty shout which went up when Zarah 
raised her right hand, sparkling with jewels in the sun. 
The men in the back rows pushed towards the front, and 
those in front pushed their ambitious brethren back with 
oaths, so that a pitched battle seemed imminent, in which 
some part of the grievances, not only of the seats but 
also of the stables and the kennels, might be settled. 

Peace fell with a great suddenness when Zarah sat 
forward and beckoned Al-Asad. She looked at the 
warring factions for a long moment, during which they 
sat as though carved out of the mountainside; then she 
smiled slowly and nodded her head and raised her right 
hand twice, upon which the men awoke once more, as 
from a trance, and yelled. 

Helen rose to her feet and clapped her hands, heedless 
of the eyes which flashed from her to Lulah, the black, 
superb Nejdee mare, as she was led forward, seemingly 
with as much wickedness in her as a lamb. The men 




168 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


nudged each other and took on fresh bets with the neigh¬ 
bouring enemy as they remarked upon the stirrups swing¬ 
ing from the wisp of a native saddle. “Stirrups!” ejacu¬ 
lated a groom of the stables to one of the kennels. “And 
thou say’st that the white woman rides?” 

“The Inglizi ride not without stirrups!” 

“Then they ride not at all!” 

“With or without stirrups, O brother, thou knowest 
that that black she-devil Lulah is not to be ridden; yet 
will I make thee a bet of this, my silver-handled knife, 
against the silver ring of no value upon thy finger that 
yon white woman rides the Satan-possessed mare.” 

The two men placed the stakes at their feet just as, 
with a short run, one of the stable grooms flung himself 
into the saddle, and fell off the other side as the mare 
reared, jerking the head groom, who held the halter, off 
his feet. 

Then ran men from all sides, eager, from sheer love 
of horses and of sport, to try and dominate the beautiful 
creature that lashed out on every side, squealing with 
what they thought to be anger, and what Helen knew to 
be pain. And slowly, inch by inch, the litter tipped to 
one side as one of the undersized, under-nourished Arme¬ 
nians succumbed to the agony of his hurt, until Zarah, 
white with rage and cursing volubly, stepped hurriedly 
out as the other three dumped the litter just as their 
companion fell. She did not wait, so great was her rage, 
to upbraid them; instead, longing to hurt, to kill, in her 
wrath, she walked straight up to Helen, who stood watch¬ 
ing the mare pawing the ground. 

“You say you can r-r-ride any zing, Helena, my dear-r-r 
school fr-rien’,” she said sweetly, standing slender and 
straight, at the English girl’s side, whilst the men broke 
ranks and rushed across the plateau so as to overhear 
the conversation. 

“So I can, Zarah. But you know there’s something 
wrong with that mare. It’s not all nerves.” 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


169 


“She has never-r-r been r-r-ridden befor-r-e, Miss Veter- 
r-inar-r-y, that’s all zat is ze matter wiz her-r-r. Why 
do you not have a tr-r-y ?” 

“Why not indeed? I had a bucking waler at home 
once, which was miles worse than that mare. Tell the 
men to stand clear, and tell the one holding her to turn 
her head from me. I don’t want her broadside on.” 

Final and terrific betting took place as the men heard 
their mistress issue the last orders and rushed back to 
their places; then complete silence fell as Helen walked 
towards the mare, then bent to adjust a strap on her 
riding-boot. She looked back suddenly at Zarah and 
caught the expression of her face, and bent and adjusted 
yet again the strap upon her boot. 

She could not interpret the Arabian’s mocking smile, 
but she understood, in a lightning flash of intuition, that 
she was to uphold her country’s reputation for riding 
in the eyes of the finest horsemen in the world, and, great 
horsewoman that she was, became suddenly lost to every¬ 
thing outside a fierce determination to do her country 
credit. 

“My last goat to thy new shoes,” a groom of the 
kennels whispered feverishly to his neighbour at the sight 
of Helen’s laughing face as she backed a yard or so; he 
nearly broke the neighbour’s arm in the terrific grip he 
gave it when Helen ran, caught the mane, vaulted into 
the saddle, and throwing her left leg over the beautiful 
black head, slipped to the ground on the off-side just 
before the beast reared with a scream. 

(( Wah! wall!” yelled the men. “Wahl wall!” and rose 
to their feet and fought each other in their great excite¬ 
ment. 

“Allah gives us the victory!” yelled a groom of the 
stables. “If she cannot even sit a horse, how can she 
ride? Hasten, O my brother, with a cushion upon which 
this white woman may rest safely upon the earth!” 

“ ‘Advice given in the midst of a crowd is loathsome,’ ” 


170 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


quoted brother, his hand upon his knife, which he forgot 
to draw as he watched Helen. She stood talking to the 
mare; she beckoned a child with a tray of dates, and took 
a handful and held them out. The mare stretched her 
beautiful head and sniffed at them, then nibbled them, 
showing the red depths of her nostrils; then, when Helen 
gave a pull at the saddle, lashed out and flung herself 
sideways. 

“I thought so,” said Helen. 

For quite ten minutes she stood talking to the mare, 
until the men began to fidget and grumble and Zarah 
to laugh; then she spoke sharply to the groom who held 
the rope halter. 

“Hold on tight, I am going to take the saddle off.” 

Zarah made a quick step forward as Helen patted the 
satiny flank, working her hands towards the heavy buckle. 
There came a yell from everyone as she seized it and 
hung on to it until it w r as undone, just as the groom 
hung on to the rope halter, despite the slashing hoofs 
and the mare’s violent efforts to be rid of these people 
w r ho so tormented her. 

Helen whipped the light saddle off the mare’s blood¬ 
stained back and held it up, turning it first to Zarah, 
who laughed, and then to the men, who literally howled 
execrations. 

“You brutes!” she cried. “You cowardly brutes ! Look ! 
The point of a nail, w r hich pricked the mare each time 
the saddle was touched. Come here.” The head groom 
ran forward, salaaming, protesting that he knew nothing 
about it all, speaking the truth, for a wonder. “You 
say you did not saddle the mare. Then why don’t you 
look after the men under you? Take it!” She flung the 
w T isp of a saddle full in the man’s face, so that the 
buckle cut his cheek, upon which the place resounded 
with shouts of joy and peals of laughter, which stopped 
when she raised her hand. 

“I ride her bare-back,” she cried, and smiled at the 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 171 

men when, with the Arab’s proverbial inconstancy, they 
yelled encouragement. 

She stood patting the mare, stroking the quivering 
back, lightly touching the superficial wound until the 
animal became accustomed to pressure on the spot; then 
she took the halter and trotted the beautiful beast down 
the full length of the plateau, whilst the men sighed with 
joy at the sight. 

“A babe can lead a horse,” scoffed the equivalent of a 
British stable-lad; “let us wait until she essays to scramble 
to the back, even as a monkey scrambles up a pole.” 

But Helen had no intention of emulating the monkey; 
she intended riding that mare if she died in the attempt. 
She took the beautiful creature round the full circle, 
caused by the men sitting in a ring, at a trot, then at a 
gentle canter, then caught the mane and vaulted across 
the bare back. 

“Now, God,” cried Helen, “help me now!” 

Which was her somewhat unusual prayer in time of 
stress. 

The spectators held their breath as the mare bucked 
madly in an effort to dislodge the girl; then they yelled 
again and again as she reared and bucked and flung her 
heels up until Helen leant against the satiny back. 

It was a magnificent exhibition of horsemanship, but 
the men scattered like chaff before the wind when Lulah 
the Black suddenly made a dash through them straight 
for the river edge; and they shouted bets one to the 
other upon the white woman’s chance of life and death as 
she almost shot over the mare’s head when she stopped 
suddenly on the very brink, with slender forelegs wide 
spread; then wheeled and raced back to the arena, where 
she bucked to the far end, then wheeled and broke into a 
furious gallop, which strenuous exercise lasted for some 
considerable time, until it changed to a canter, then sub¬ 
sided to a trot, when the men, carried out of themselves 
with enthusiasm, rushed and surrounded the pair. 


172 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


Zarah, with a face like a night of storm, had just 
beckoned Al-Asad to order him to quell the humiliating 
tumult, when the sentry from the cleft in the rocks came 
running down the narrow path. 

“It is a solitary rider, O mistress,” he panted as 
he fell at Zarah’s feet, “upon a far-spent camel. He 
hangs over upon his own knees, he guided not the beast, 
which even now flounders deep in the sands of death. But 
the space of three of thy servant’s hands to the west, 0 
Great One, and the camel stood safely upon the hidden 
path. I cannot see the face of the rider, but his raiment 
is that of the white race, and I ran to tell thee, Q 
mistress, as thou didst command me.” 

Zarah gave an order to Al-Asad and beckoned the 
head groom of the stables, who stood at a distance nursing 
his wounded cheek. 

“The stallion, Abyad, on the instant,” she said 
sharply. 

The man ran at uttermost speed to the stables, whilst 
Zarah, taking no notice of Helen, walked swiftly to the 
beginning of the narrow path leading up to the cleft, 
as Al-Asad strode through the men, hurling them roughly 
to each side, until he reached the mare. 

“Behold, O white woman,” he said curtly, “thou art 
to return to thy nest near the skies and to remain within 
until thy mistress sends for thee. The black woman 
with the gait of a lame hen will keep guard over thee, and 
if thou dost attempt to walk out, even upon the narrow 
way outside the door, then-” 

The men whispered amongst themselves as Helen slipped 
from the mare’s back and walked slowlv to the steep 
steps, being far too wise either to notice the peremptori¬ 
ness of the Nubian’s manner or to attempt to disobey 
Zarah’s orders. 

She climbed up and up to her nest near the sky, where 
the surly negress awaited her, whilst the men followed 
the Nubian as he ran to overtake his mistress, who drove 



ZARAH THE CRUEL 173 

her stallion as fast as he could cramble up the steep 
mountain path. 

It was a wonderful sight to witness, and one that, in 
spite of her brutality and cruelty, endeared her to her 
men. 

She rode her favorite Nejdee, a white stallion of purest 
breed, standing fifteen hands, which is a height never 
exceeded in this perfect horse. She rode him without 
saddle or stirrup, and barely lifted the halter-rope which, 
with the Nejdee, always takes the place of bit, guiding him 
by knees and voice, urging him on, as she rode to save 
the man she loved. 

The stallion slithered and scrambled like a goat down 
the other side of the spot w r here the spear, thrown at 
the Arabian girl’s father, stuck fast in a cleft between two 
rocks, whilst the men fought each other for the best 
point of vantage from which they could watch either the 
sinking of the camel and its rider, who looked as one dead, 
or his rescue by the indomitable woman who ruled them. 

And all were too intent upon the sport of the moment 
to notice a faint movement amongst the rocks to the east, 
where the shadows were heaviest. 

“It is a white man, and the camel’s belly sinketh in 
the sand,” w'hispered Namlah to Yussuf. “She, our 
mistress, and may the hyenas pick her bones, rides out 
to save him.” 

“May he be saved,” whispered back the blind man, 
“and may she make her bed to-night in the depths of 
the sands in his stead. Linger thou, O Namlah, until we 
know the will of Allah, the one and only God, concerning 
this white man; then must thou flee, lest thy absence from 
amongst the women be noticed.” 

As Namlah said, the camel lay upon the quicksands, 
screaming with fear, struggling and fighting, biting at 
the sands which w T ere slowly sucking it down, whilst 
Ralph Trenchard sat with his head on his knees, which, 
holding the peak of the saddle in a deadly cramp, had 


174 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


prevented him from falling in the last stretch of the water¬ 
less journey through hours of burning sun. 

The stallion stood near the spear, shivering in the fear 
of the death he knew to surround him. He had crossed 
the path more times than his mistress could remember, 
and he knew that he would have to cross in the end, 
driven by the agony of the golden spurs in his sides, just 
as he always crossed in the end, no matter how strenu¬ 
ously he resisted. But he stood and shivered and rolled 
his gentle eyes until a sharp jab brought him to his 
hind feet, then another, which sent him dancing, curvetting 
down the path. His long silvery mane and tail blew 
out in the evening breeze like silken streamers, his dainty, 
polished hoofs flashed in the red light of the setting sun, 
and he pricked his small ears at the screams of the camel, 
as he went down the path and turned, spurred by the 
beautiful, relentless woman until they faced the rocks. 

Zarah’s eyes were wonderful to behold as she leant far 
over and touched Ralph Trenchard on the shoulder. They 
were tender and sweet and fearless, until into them shot 
an agonizing look of terror as she clutched the stallion’s 
silvery mane and leant farther over still and caught the 
man’s hair in her fingers and pulled back his head and 
looked down into the terrible face with the closed eyes. 

Then she grasped his collar with her right hand and 
pulled on the rope-halter with her left, as she dug the 
spurs into the stallion’s sides so that he reared and 
backed until, for fear of falling over onto the camel, she 
had perforce to let go her hold on the man who sat 
stiffly, with his head on his knees, as the camel sank inch 
by inch to its death. 

She sat back, with an agony of horror stamped on her 
face, which was beautiful under the power of her love, and 
sent a ringing cry over to the men gathered to watch 
the fight. » 

“ Bil-ajal , Asad,” she called. “ Bil-ajal! bil-ajal!” 

Al-Asad leapt from the rock to the hidden path and 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


175 


raced to his mistress’s bidding, swiftly, surely, heedless 
of the death which awaited him on the first false step, 
eager to help the woman he loved, even in the task of 
rescuing the man to whom she had given her heart. 

“Give me space, O mistress!” he cried, as he stood 
with one foot upon the path and the other upon the 
back of the camel’s saddle and gripped Ralph Trenchard 
round the waist. “Nearer, O mistress, and place the 
stallion’s silver hair within m} r hand.” The shouts of the 
men rang out over the desert as they watched the desper¬ 
ate fight, as the Nubian put out all his mighty strength 
and pulled just as Zarah drove in the golden spurs 
until the stallion reared. “Thy dagger, O mistress,” he 
cried, as he let go his hold upon the mane and sprang 
back upon the path. “The white man’s knees break 
under the strain.” He seized the razor-edged, jewelled 
dagger and stood once more with his foot on the back of 
the camel’s saddle and bent and felt in the sands, which 
pulled at his hands and arms as he sawed at the girth. 

He sawed through the girth on both sides and cut the 
ropes, and holding the jewelled dagger between his teeth, 
bent and took hold of the saddle as the sands rose to 
the level where the animal’s mangy tail began. He had 
a few minutes in which to perform the mighty deed, and 
Namlah gripped Yussuf’s hand and the men made the 
wildest, maddest bets upon the outcome of the struggle. 

He placed both hands under the back of the saddle and 
tipped it forward; it was free; then gripped the back 
pommel and the front pommel and looked up at the 
woman he loved. 

“Back, 0 mistress! Back, lest I break the stallion’s 
legs!” 

The muscles of his back and chest and arms rippled, 
then tautened, then stood out in great knots. 

He lifted the saddle a few inches and let it fall back 
and shifted his slender hands; lifted it higher and higher 
until it rested for a second upon his bent knees; then, to 


176 


ZAHAH THE CRUEL 


the sound of the men’s mighty shouting, made one super¬ 
human effort and, just as the sands touched his feet, with 
a great swing of the shoulders flung the saddle and the 
senseless rider to safety upon the narrow path. 


CHAPTER XIV 


“A greater liar than Moseylama ”— Arabic Proverb. 

Three weeks passed, in which the Arabian nursed Ralph 
Trenchard until the fever, brought on by exhaustion, 
thirst and terrific heat, had left him, and left him very 
sane and not unduly weak, and very full of gratitude to 
the beautiful girl whom he seemed to have seen at his 
bedside day and night, and who seemed to have changed 
her dress a hundred times, if she had changed it once. 

The nerve-racking jangle of her bracelets and anklets 
and the overwhelming strength of her perfume drove him 
wellnigh crazy at times, but, remembering what he would 
learn from her upon his complete recovery, he stuffed 
the ends of the silk sheets into his ears and held his 
nostrils forcibly between thumb and finger under cover 
of the same luxurious bed-spread. 

Truly once or twbce he grievously feared for his 
reason. 

He wakened one night to see a remarkably handsome 
and muscular man, clad in naught but a loin-cloth, sit¬ 
ting motionless in the middle of the floor with what looked 
like a woman’s sandal pressed to his heart; and right 
strange and idiotic did he look, too, when he placed the 
sandal upon the floor and proceeded to press his forehead 
upon it. Then, two or three, or maybe more, nights fol¬ 
lowing—for he had completely lost all sense of time—he 
wakened to see nothing less than a lion rolling blithely 
upon its back not two yards from him, which, having 
rolled awhile, proceeded to gambol playfully about the 
room, then slouched to the doorway, through which it 
disappeared for good. When he turned slowly upon his 

177 






178 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


bed to see what else might be in store for him, he saw' 
the face of the beautiful girl looking down upon him 
from a spot ’twixt floor and ceiling as though suspended 
in mid-air. 

He laughed when, the delirium passed, these strange 
occurrences were explained to him by Zarah, who, just 
because he felt too uncertain for the moment about past 
events to question her about Helen, allowed herself to 
be deluded into the belief that he had forgotten the tale 
Al-Asad had told when he visited the Bedouin camp dis¬ 
guised as a holy man. Then this evening he sent the 
youth who waited upon him to ask her to come to him. 

She came quickly, Zarah the beautiful, the tender, the 
pitiful, Zarah the most perfect hypocrite and liar, and 
sat at his feet upon the floor, appropriately clothed in 
black and silver, with the lower part of her lovely face 
semi-hidden by a yashmak, over which her beautiful eyes 
gazed into his with an expression which would have 
deceived even the astutest old Holy Father. 

“Where is Helen Raynor?” 

He asked the question abruptly, taking her unawares. 

She had intended telling him—if he should remember 
the Nubian’s story—that Helen had returned to Hutah 
under escort and had perished in the locust storm, but 
the abrupt question took her off her guard. 

“She is dead and buried in the quicksands,” she lied 
instantly, uncontrollably, infinitely unwisely, without 
giving a thought to the far-reaching effects of the lie. 

“Dead! My God! When? How?” 

Seeing the terrible mistake she had made, seeing no 
way out of it, she backed the lie, planning in a flash to 
give a slight foundation to the disastrous mistake by 
getting rid of the girl that very night. She laid her 
henna-tipped, jewelled hand upon Ralph Trenchard’s 
and told him the sad story of Helen Raynor’s death, and 
mopped her melting, dry eyes with the corner of the 
silken sheet as she answered his horrified questions. 



ZARAH THE CRUEL 


179 


. . yes! I made a gr-r-reat effort to save her-r, 
my dear-r schoolmate,” she said, “but, alas! kismet , 
Allah had decr-r-r-eed other-r-wise. . . Her arms 
showed like creamy-yellow ivory as she raised them duti¬ 
fully above her downcast head in a gesture that showed off 
her alluring figure to perfection. “. . . Nay! dear-r 
Helena said no wor-rd, she just died. Wher-r-re? Oh! 
in a bed. Yes! here in the mountain dwelling. By the 
mercy of Mohammed the Pr-r-ophet did she die, so zat 
her face should be a beautiful memor-r-y to her fr-r-ien’s, 
even if I, Zarah . . She struck her breast with 
a beautiful gesture of resignation, but not hard enough 
to mark it, even in her intense grief. “. . . Yea! even 
if I, Zarah, shall have to car-r-y the dr-r-readful picture 
of it, all br-r-oken, before my eyes until ze day when 
death shall claim me also.” When Ralph Trenchard 
shivered in absolute horror, she shivered also, perhaps 
out of s} r mpathy for him, perhaps to impress the thought 
of the English girl’s face upon him—who knows? Then 
she got up and trailed across the floor to a table laden 
w T ith drinks of divers sweetness and coolness. 

He looked at the exquisite picture she made, and, long¬ 
ing to hear more about the girl he loved, stretched out 
his hand; and she looked at him w T ith the love of all women 
in her glorious eyes, and walked back to him swiftly and 
with all the grace of her Spanish mother, carrying a 
tray with glasses of frothing sherbet, which he did not 
want or touch. 

“Thou art indeed a man,” she said softly in Arabic, 
as she placed the tray on a stool, ensconced herself cross- 
legged upon the divan, and leant towards him as she lit 
her cigarette, so that he w T as almost suffocated with the 
pungency of her perfume. “Yea! verily amongst my 
subjects, who are of a truth somewhat misshapen about 
the legs from overmuch bestriding of the Nejdee, thou 
art indeed a man !” 

She sat and looked at him with all her love in her 


180 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


eyes, whilst he sat and wished that in some way he could 
express his gratitude for all she had done for Helen. 
But when, after much searching in those portions of 
her raiment which looked as though they might be large 
enough to conceal a minute pocket, she showed him 
Helen’s wrist-watch upon her palm, then he moved close 
to her and crushed her hand in both of his until he 
almost broke her fingers, as she told him how Helen 
had given it to her in memory of old times. 

. I give it to you,” she said at last. 

It was a sacrifice. 

Smothered in jewels as she was, yet, with the delight 
some Orientals have in the purloined object, she coveted 
that looted watch more than all her rubies, emeralds, 
pearls and diamonds put together in a heap. 

He sat for a long time with the tragic, lying, little 
token in his hand, then turned and looked into the doe¬ 
like eyes, which looked fearlessly back into his. 

“And this is all? You have nothing else, no little 
thing, a handkerchief, a hair-pin, anything, no mat¬ 
ter how trivial, that belonged to your old school 
friend?” 

Zarah shook her beautiful head and sighed as she lied 
once more with the ease of long-established custom, and 
the certainty of being able before long to give some 
foundation to the lie. 

“No-zing! No little zing! We bur-r-ried her-r, as 
I have told you, in her-r cloze. She was not beautiful to 
look upon. Ai , ai y she was not pr-r-etty in ze gr-r-eat 
sleep, so we bur-r-ied her-r-r deep, deep in ze comfor-r- 
ting sands, which tell no tales.” 

She rose once more as she spoke and trailed across the 
marble floor to the door. 

Perchance she wished to study astronomy or, perchance, 
to draw a comparison between the beauty of those who 
live in luxury and the disfigurement of those who die in 
battle. Whatever her intent, she certainly made a strik- 


ZARALI THE CRUEL 


181 


ing picture as she leaned against the lintel, wrapped in 
a sheath of black and silver. 

Ralph Trenchard stared at her, his eyes wandering 
from the red curls to the small feet in silver sandals. 

She knew his eyes to be upon her, and turned slowly 
sideways and sighed as she raised her bare arms above 
her head so that their creamy whiteness shone against 
the purple background of the sky; she sighed again and 
pressed her hands upon the spot where by rights her 
heart should have been, whilst her melting eyes showed 
fine specimens of the tears of the crocodile as she inwardly 
asked herself if, in the whole world, there was to be found 
anything quite so slow as an Englishman. 

And he sat and gazed and gazed at the exquisite figure, 
in which he saw the golden head and the broad shoulders, 
the slender waist and the polished riding-boots, of the 
girl to whom he had given the gold watch he held in his 
hand. 

He sat quite still for a long time, stunned with horror, 
then, quite unconscious of w r hat he did, caused the beauti¬ 
ful Arabian to totally lose her bearings, so that fear, 
jealousy and love linked hands in her heart and drove 
her down the road of tragedy which had been marked 
out for her through the ages. 

Saying nothing, he smiled at her and held out his 
hand, so that, completely on the wrong tack, she ran to 
him, the silver embroidery glittering in response to her 
fast-beating heart; then he kissed her hand in gratitude, 
which was just about the most idiotic thing he could 
have done, and, considering all things, spoke words of 
equal idiocy into her willing ear. 

“You will come and talk to me to-morrow, will you 
not?” By talk he meant talk of Helen, but how on earth 
was the Arabian to know that? “You will? Thank you 
so much, so very much!” He stopped; then, in his 
craving to regain his strength so as to get away from the 
horror of the place where Helen lay dead, hidden from 


182 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


him for ever in the ghastly sands, misled the Arabian 
entirely. “Can I walk about the camp? Can I have a 
horse or a camel or something to ride in the desert so 
as to get really strong?” 

“Ride with me?” 

She barely -whispered the words. 

“Rather! If you have the time to spare. It would 
be awfully kind of you. Then we could talk about the 
school you were at and everything.” 

By which he meant Helen’s schooldays and Helen’s 
illness and Helen’s death; but how was the Arabian, 
blinded by love and vanity, to know that, especially as 
out of sheer gratitude he held her hand in both of his 
whilst he talked. 

He took her to the steps and watched her descend, 
then turned and flung himself upon the divan with the 
watch against his lips, whilst Zarah the Cruel, wide awake 
to the danger of his walking amongst her men -whilst 
Helen remained in the camp, climbed the narrow path 
to the building where dwelt the girl he thought to be 
dead. 

44 44 ^ 

Vf» VJv v|v Vjv 

“May her envier stumble over her hair ”— Arabic Proverb. 

She had told Ralph Trenchard that the girl w r as dead, 
when not only was she alive, but a person of some con¬ 
sequence in the camp through the thrice cursed episode 
of the black mare. 

Knowing nothing about constancy and honour and 
about as much about the question of nationality in mar¬ 
riage, she was firmly convinced that in time the white man, 
forgetting Helen, would succumb to her beauty and 
marry her. 

But before that thrice blessed day, even before he left 
his dwelling to walk with her in the camp as he had just 
suggested, the girl must disappear so that the unlucky 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


183 


lie should have a slight foundation of truth, as have 
so many falsehoods in the East when sifted to the 
bottom. 

Once the girl was dead she would rely upon her own 
power over her own people to prevent the real facts of 
the case from reaching his ears. 

The first thing was to find a way of ridding herself 
of the girl who stood as an obstacle in that path of peace 
and love which ended in the white man’s heart, but, above 
all, a way which would cause no comment amongst the men. 
The way was shown her, startlingly clear and simple, 
within the hour. 

She cursed herself, the lie, fate and the black mare as 
she climbed the steep steps to Helen’s prison. 

If only she had not saved the girl in the first place, 
if only, in the second, she had not so foolishly allowed 
Helen to win the men’s hearts by her magnificent horse¬ 
manship, if only she had not lied. If it had not been for 
that thrice cursed episode with Lulah, the mare, she 
would not have hesitated an hour ridding herself of the 
girl, either by sending her back to civilization under escort 
or by some more drastic method. 

Up till then the white girl had meant nothing more 
than a prisoner to the men, and the disappearance of a 
prisoner, even one of the white race, would have been no 
subject of comment amongst them. As it was she could 
do nothing. 

The Nubian reported that the men constantly talked 
about Helen; exercised their best horses in the hope 
that she would one day ride out in the desert with them, 
either to hunt ostrich with cheetahs or to lead them to 
the attack on some caravan or company of Bedouins. 
They had taken to standing at the foot of the steep steps 
to gamble upon the chance of seeing her come out upon 
the platform, whilst gossip ran high as to the relation-- 
ship between her and the white man whom the half-caste 
had saved from the sands of death. 


184 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


So that she cursed herself over and over again for the 
lie she had told Ralph. 

She lied by nature and by habit; in fact, she found it 
easier and a good deal more enjoyable to lie than to tell 
the truth, but she had lied without giving herself time to 
look at the result of this particular lie from every point 
of view. 

The surly negress, with the gait of a lame hen, rose 
from her squatting position as her dire mistress passed 
up the steps, and retired still farther into the shadows, 
where she occupied herself in the pleasant and stimulating, 
if not too elegant, task of chewing Kaat as a relaxation 
from the dull work of spying upon the gentle white girl. 

Zarah stood for a moment and looked through the 
doorway at Helen. She sat upon a pile of cushions, 
reading by the light of a silver lamp hanging from the 
ceiling. 

Certain that the negress had replaced Namlah for the 
purpose of carrying reports about her, she had made up 
her mind that nothing but reports of normal behaviour 
should be carried. 

She woefully missed the peace and austerity of the 
other dwelling, also the view of the desert through the 
cleft, and of the plateau with the rushing, sparkling 
river; but she made no sign, neither did she complain 
about the heat, which was so much greater, nor about the 
clutter of Persian rugs, cushions and tables, which only 
served to intensify it. She had been told that her old 
dwelling-place had been required for certain prisoners, 
and that on their account she had been forbidden to walk 
outside. Not a word of which she believed. 

Certain that eyes continually watched her, she forced 
herself to read; constantly on the lookout for danger, 
she smiled upon and spoke gently to the surly negress, 
who would not open her lips or respond in any way to her 
friendly advances. She was putting up a plucky fight 
against loneliness and anxiety. But it was not likely that 


185 


ZAIiAH THE CRUEL 

Zarah should understand the moral strength which sus- 

o 

tained the English girl in the long, weary days of silence 
and confinement. It would have suited the Arabian 
better to have seen her crying her eyes out, or pacing 
the floor in agitation; anything, in fact, rather than 
sitting quietly reading; so that she made a quick gesture 
of impatience, upon which Helen looked up, shut her book 
with a snap, and sprang to her feet. 

“Zarah!” she cried. “It’s ages since I’ve seen you. 
You haven’t been near me since I was moved from my old 
place. Have you got rid of the bad prisoners? I am 
so tired of being cooped up in here!” 

Zarah sat down on a pile of cushions and lit a cigarette, 
as an answer to her difficulties flashed across her mind 
at Helen’s words. 

“You want to walk? You do not like being a 
pr- r-isoner-r your-r-self. You ar-r-e no pr-r-isoner. You 
must not go acr-r-oss ze plateau, but ozerwise ze place is 
all your-r-s.” 

As one could not move out of the place without crossing 
the plateau, the all-ness seemed to be limited to the build¬ 
ing and a small space behind, surrounded by towering 
rocks at which even the goats looked askance. 

Helen knew it, and suddenly changed the subject. She 
wanted to get leave to wander about the place as she 
used to do; she wanted to find the secret path and to 
speak to Namlah; she wanted desperately to escape, but 
she knew Zarah’s astuteness and had a faint conception 
of her intense hatred for herself; so went warily in her 
demand for a little more liberty and changed the subject. 

“I wonder w r hat this building was used for?” she said, 
slowly passing her finger over a roughly carved stone 
panel, tracing the outline of a fish, some kind of a water- 
fowl and a cross, carved in the centre of a disc in the fifth 
century by the Holy Fathers. “The age almost makes 
me creep, and I often wonder if the dead fathers come 
back at night to walk about their old home.” 


186 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


Zarah sprang to her feet in a positive whirlwind of 
gestures against spirits. 

“You br-ring ze bad luck upon your-r-self and ze 
place, Helena. Nozing comes her-re or-r leaves her-r-e 
without my per-r-mission.” 

Helen seized the opportunity and crossed quickly to 
where Zarah stood, marvelling at her beauty. 

“Zarah,” she said sweetly, “when are you going to find 
the time to take me to Hutah. I do so want to get 
back. Do you know what I’ve been thinking?” Zarah 
shook her head as she looked at Helen, raging inwardly 
at the English girl’s beauty, especially the golden hair, 
which, for coolness sake, hung in two great plaits to her 
knees. “You come with me and stay with me on a return 
visit, and together we will try and find out what has 
become of Ralph Trenchard, because I am sure he is 
alive. I should know if he wasn’t, I am sure I should.” 

Zarah turned abruptly away, swinging her cloak about 
her so that her mouth was hidden. She wanted to laugh, 
and she wanted to strike the English girl for the pos¬ 
sessive way in which she always spoke of the sick man, 
whom she, Zarah, had nursed so assiduously for days 
and nights; also could she willingly have killed her on the 
spot for the almost irreparable mistake she had caused 
her to make by lying about her death. 

Helen saw nothing of the girl’s fury; she had bent to 
pick up a box of chocolates, whilst the surly negress 
watched her through the doorway and inelegantly wiped 
her mouth with the back of her hand. 

“Have a sweet, Zarah,” Helen said gently, offering 
the box, “and then be really nice and take me for a walk. 
I shall die if I don’t get a scramble amongst the rocks.” 

“Wher-r-e do you want to go?” Zarah asked, as she 
zealously filled her mouth with the sweetmeats the surly 
negress coveted. 

“I do so w^ant to see the spear which was flung at your 
father, and then”—Helen laughed so that her request 
should not be taken too seriously—“then couldn’t we 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


187 


walk across the wonderful hidden path to the desert, then 
walk back? HI pin your train up if you’ve got a safety 
pin. You are beautiful, Zarah; I can’t think why you 
haven’t been married years ago.” 

Zarah whirled round on her like a tiger-cat. In her 
violent jealousy she thought the other sneered at her; 
in her littleness of mind she failed to catch the ring of 
honest admiration in the girl’s voice. 

“Mar-r-ried!” she shrilled. “I am going to be mar- 
r-ried soon, and you won’t be her-r-e to see the cer-r- 
emony. Oh, do go away!” She pushed Helen roughly 
on one side when she put out her hand in congratulation. 
“We Ar-r-rabians do not expand over-r ze idea of mar* 
r-riage as you English do.” She walked to the door as 
she added insolently, “We have no old maids, and I am 
younger zan you,” then clapped her hands and called the 
surly negress shrilly, angrily. 

“Methinks a whip upon the soles would hasten thy 
feet,” she cried furiously, as the woman ran forward and 
flung herself face downwards. “Thou three-footed 
jackal, get up!” She struck the woman in the face when 
she opened her mouth, from which no coherent sound 
came, owing to her tongue having been split in her youth 
for misdemeanour, and struck again, until Helen caught 
her by the shoulder and flung her on one side, whereupon 
the negress fell on her knees, bowed her head to the 
ground and kissed the Arabian’s feet. 

“You stop that, Zarah!” 

The w r ords sounded like the crack of a whip as the two 
beautiful girls faced each other over the crouching 
woman. 

“She’s dumb, and I never knew it! It’s awful!” 

“You fool!” replied the Arabian. “Her husband beats 
her after every meal, and sometimes between. Get up!” 
She kicked the woman, who leapt to her feet and stood 
shivering with bent head. 

“The white woman has a desire for exercise after her 
long confinement owing to the unruliness of the prisoners. 



188 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


1 Dost hear, thou fool? She wishes to walk across the 
path of peril even to the far side. It is dangerous, and 
I have tried to prevail against her. One step too far, as 
thou knowest, and she passes into the keeping of Allah, 
the one and only God. Watch thou and pray to Allah 
for her safe return.” 

The negress watched them walk slowly along the narrow 
path until they were out of sight; then, with all the cun¬ 
ning of her race in her rolling eyes, and all a child’s glee 
at its naughtiness, crept back to the room, and, sidling 
along the wall, grabbed a handful of French chocolates. 
If she had waited one instant longer she might have seen 
a hidden figure crawl away between the rocks as silently 
as a snake. 

Blind Yussuf went quickly amongst the rocks, as at 
home and as sure of his footing in his blindness as any 
goat. He crept through incredibly small places, swinging 
himself hand over hand at a height where no person with 
vision would have dared to have even moved, arrived at 
the cleft, thanks to the short cut, ahead of the girls, 
dropped like a cat from rock to rock, then, slipping like 
a shadow between the boulders, sat down in the shadow 
near the thrown spear. 

He listened to the girls’ voices as they made their 
way down the steep incline. “ ‘A mouth that prays, a 
hand that kills.’ ” He drew a finger down the scars upon 
his face as he quoted the proverb and sat like an image 
of Fate as the girls stopped quite close to him at the 
beginning of the path. 

“It is quite hard, you see,” said Zarah, as she bent 
and drove her fingers through a few inches of the wet 
sand. “It is not quite three of }mur yards wide.” 

“But how wonderful!” Helen bent and dug her fingers 
in, then moved them along sideways until her whole 
hand disappeared into soft, wet, warm sand which pulled 
it gently. “How dreadful!” Then she laughed. She 
had found her way to the secret path and learned its 
secret. “I tell you what! You lead the way out, Zarah, 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 189 

then we’ll turn and I’ll tread in our footsteps and lead 
you back.” 

Zarah laughed also, suddenly, shrilly. 

The way showed clear. The end was in sight! Upon 
the return journey she had but to push Helen gently 
and all the difficulties arising out of the accursed lie 
would be over. 

She made a step and put her sandalled foot upon the 
path, then turned her head and stood quite still, her face 
convulsed with fury. 

Like some great guardian spirit Blind Yussuf stood 
just behind Helen. 

“It is not wise, O mistress,” he said gently, “to venture 
upon the perilous path this night of strong wind. It 
bloweth from the west unto the east, so that the way¬ 
farer is like to be blown into the sands of death. It is 
not wise, O mistress, and thanks be to Allah that I heard 
voices as I passed and followed with great swiftness. 
Nay, verily it is not wise.” 

He spoke gently, his great cloak hanging motionless 
in the still night, and salaamed to the ground when the 
Arabian, without a word, beckoned to the bewildered 
Helen and swiftly retraced her steps. 

Back in her prison, Helen walked out to the space 
behind the dwelling to think over matters as the moon 
rose over the edge of the mountains. She looked up 
when a stone rattled down the side to her feet. 

Upon a ledge to which a goat would have hardly dared 
to climb sat Yussuf. He put his fingers to his lips as 
he looked down at the girl he could not see but whom he 
had recognized by her footstep. “A ti balak ,” he whis¬ 
pered, then rose and swung himself from rock to rock 
by the way he had come, whilst Helen stood looking up 
until he disappeared, frozen with fear for his safety; 
then, more determined than ever, through his warning, 
to try and find a means of escape, turned and entered 
her dwelling, just as Zarah entered hers and summoned 
Al-Asad. 


CHAPTER XV 


“A rose fell to the lot of a monkey — Arabic Proverb. 

Zarah and Al-Asad sat in consultation. 

Two beautiful beings in whom cunning stood for brain 
and nether millstones for hearts—where others were 
concerned. 

To enhance her beauty in the eyes of the white man, 
who looked upon her but indifferently, the Arabian 
had worn a transparent yashmak , dyed her finger tips, 
plastered her person with as many jewels as she could 
fasten on to her garments, and walked like a cat on hot 
bricks or a mannequin or a Spaniard. In the presence 
of the Nubian, who loved her with all the might of his 
half-savage soul, she sat cross-legged on a pile of 
cushions, smoking endless cigarettes, wound in a wrapping 
of silk, which she kept in its place by tucking the ends 
in, and with her bare feet thrust into heelless slippers. 
She was far more beautiful in her simplicity than in her 
most extravagant apparel, if she had only known it, and 
a furnace would have but mildly described the tumult of 
love which she aroused in her magnificent slave. 

An hour had passed since she had hastily summoned 
him on her return from her meeting with her blind enemy 
at the beginning of the secret path—an hour in which 
they had talked and suggested and yet had failed to find 
a way out of the difficulty which had arisen out of her 
lie. 

“Thinkest thou, O Al-Asad, that the blind one knew?” 

“I know not, mistress,” he said slowly. “Perchance 
’tis Fate who guides his feet continually across thy path, 
or maybe the wind of chance. Yet can we do nothing.” 

190 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 191 

He touched an amulet of good luck at his neck; the 
Arabian made a circle in the air with her fingers. 

“May the spirit of my father, who placed the safe¬ 
keeping of the blind one in my hands, remain peacefully 
in Paradise.” 

They got up solemnly, turned from left to right three 
times, and sat down again. 

The heathens! 

When will they learn to touch wood or to turn the 
whole chair or couch round three times, with themselves, 
as do their Christian and more civilized brethren! 

“Thou dost worry overmuch, woman, about this white 
girl. She is but a fly to be blown from the rim of thy 
cup of happiness and good fortune. A word to thy 
slave and he 1 pinches the fly between his thumb and 
finger.” 

He illustrated his words, his splendid teeth flashing as 
he laughed, then ducked his handsome head so as to avoid 
the back-hander dealt him by the woman he worshipped. 

“Thou fool!” she replied shortly. “Where findest thou 
the sense to drink when thou art thirsty or to eat when 
thou art empty? Have I not told thee that the white 
man believes the wdiite woman to be dead, yea, buried 
in the sands, as she would verily have been buried this 
night if the thrice accursed blind one had not yet again 
crossed my path. If the white man w T ho has, through 
the accursed foolishness of my tongue, been told that the 
girl is dead, speaks with one who tells him that she is 
alive, what then? Thou dullard! Canst thou not see a 
glimmer of light ? Behold, art thou blinder than the blind 
one, thou imbecile offspring of foolish parents!” She 
got up and crossed to the door, from w T hich nothing could 
be seen but the stars above great walls of rock, whilst the 
Nubian rose and followed her noiselessly. 

Standing close to her, girt in his loin cloth, he towered 
above her. He bent his head so that the scented curls 
touched his lips, and gently stroked the silken wrapper 


192 


ZAHAH THE CRUEL 


with his slender fingers, whilst his heart almost broke 
in the love he had for her. 

He would have starved for her, endured torture for her, 
died for her; he was her rightful mate; she was his 
woman out of all the world; yet she hankered for the 
grapes which hung well beyond the reach of her cross¬ 
bred hands, and he forgot his manhood in the fear of 
losing the little—which was yet so much—she gave him. 
He worked so hard to gain the barest word of gratitude; 
he found such joy in lying across the threshold o’ nights 
to keep her safe; he suffered such hell through jealousy; 
yet in his loyalty, in his desire to bring her happiness, he 
had not once thought of removing the white man from his 
own path. The white woman, yea, why not? What dif¬ 
ference would one soulless woman more or less make in 
this world already overstocked with soulless women? Once 
she was removed and the woman of his heart’s desire mar¬ 
ried to the man she loved—and did Allah in His wisdom 
ever know of such a tangle—then he would ride out into 
the desert and die, or, better still, become chief of a band 
with which to harry the white man when he ventured 
across the quicksands. 

Primitive reasoning, but not too bad for one who could 
neither read nor write, and whose idea of God was a vasty, 
corporeal deity who offered sweetmeats with one hand 
and struck one for taking them with the other. 

He laughed as he spoke, on the spur of his primitive 
reasoning, and stroked the soft silk which wrapped his 
rightful mate. 

“Mistress !’* 

At a certain tone in his voice with which she was un¬ 
acquainted she turned her head and looked over her 
shoulder and up at him sideways, so that her yellow eyes 
gleamed through half-closed lids, just as gleamed the eyes 
of the wellnigh adolescent lion cub watching them from a 
corner of the luxurious room. 

“Mistress, it were well if I broke the neck of the white 




ZARAH THE CRUEL 


193 


woman within the hour, and fastening her dead body upon 
some horse, sent them floundering into the sands of death. 
Then will I spread a tale of the white woman’s betrayal 
of thy hospitality, and how she stole thy horse and at¬ 
tempted to escape, so-” 

He laughed as she turned upon him in anger, then bent 
and looked down into her beautiful, furious eyes with a 
look she did not understand, but which caused her to draw 
back a pace. 

“Behold, are thy words as bright as a rusty sword and 
thy reasoning as sharp as the blunt edge,” she cried. 
“The white woman has found favour in the eyes of thy 
brethren, thou fool! Thinkest thou that when they hear 
of her death that their lamentations will not reach to the 
mountaintops, yea, and to the ears of the white man, so 
that he turns upon me in rage? Behold, are the wits of 
the deaf boy who waits upon the white man like two-edged 
daggers compared to thine, O Al-Asad of the camel head!” 

Al-Asad of the camel head made no sign of the storm 
caused within him by the nearness of the woman and her 
contemptuous words. He stood quite still, the perfume 
of her hair in his nostrils, the silk of her garment in his 
hands. 

“Thou makest a pond of a raindrop, woman,” he an¬ 
swered. “What are my brethren but children, pleased 
to-day at a smile, angered to-morrow at a word? Make 
great promise of feasting and fighting, and their love 
belongs to the giver of food and promoter of battle; laugh 
at them, mock them, make sport of their words and their 
raiment and their countenance, and they kill without a 
word.” 

Zarah put her little hands against his chest and pushed 
him away, and looked at him sideways as she crossed to 
the couch, and looked at him again when he did not fol¬ 
low, and beckoned him with a backward movement of the 
head, which showed him the beauty of her throat as he 
leant against the lintel and looked at her, and laughed 






194 ZARAH THE CRUEL 

at the simplicity of the plan that was formulating in his 
mind. 

Dying of thirst, he stretched for the cup even if there 
was but a drop of water left; starving, he swept the very 
floor for a crust; destitute, he demanded the smallest 
coin as price for the way he had found for removing the 
obstacle from the Arabian girl’s path. When she beckoned 
he crossed to her and sat down, but not upon the floor 
at her feet. He sat beside her, close to her, and looked 
at her so that she shrank away. 

“Shelter is given to the camel, meat to the dog, water 
to the horse at the end of a day of toil,” he said slowly. 
“What reward will be given this slave if he removes the 
cloud from before the sun of his mistress’s happiness?” 

“Thou! A reward given unto thee?” She could hardly 
have shown more astonishment if he had asked for the 
heaped-up contents of her jewel safe. “My father gave 
thee shelter when thou didst flee from the wrath of those 
who desired thy life, dates when thy bones pierced thy 
skin, water when thou wast wellnigh dead from thirst. 
A reward? Behold, the whip across thy mouth will be 
thy reward for thy daring, thou mongrel!” 

She had worked herself into a rare rage, and flung her¬ 
self to the far end of the couch, so that an end of the 
silken wrapper became untucked; and she beat upon the 
cushions with clenched fists, thereby causing the loosened 
garment to slip yet lower still, until it exposed the 
splendid shoulders, which looked the more bewitching 
in that they were half draped. 

Alas! that it be so hard a task to drill into the heads 
of women the simple truth that, where decolletage is con¬ 
cerned, a hint is far more potent than a whole hard fact. 

“A reward for thee?” she repeated. “For thee?” 

“Yea, a date, a drop of water. . . .” He paused, then 
rose and walked to the door and looked up at the stars 
and laughed at the thought of the gift he would pluck 
from paradise. “Yea, a date for the camel and water 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


195 


for the horse, but a kiss—one kiss—from thy mouth, 
which is as a red flower fashioned in rubies and set with 
pearls which are thy teeth. Nay, fling not thyself upon 
thy slave, for he could break thee with one hand. The 
camel works not without reward, the horse dies without 
water, thy slave will not reveal his plan without the promise 
of that which he craves.” 

“But the camel and the horse fulfil their tasks,” said 
Zarah sweetly, slowly, baiting her trap, into which the 
simple barbarian would ultimately fall. “The reward 
comes afterwards, O Al-Asad, when the heat of the day 
is o’er and the peace of the night falleth apace. Come!” 

She held out her hand and he ran to her, ran as swiftly 
as a deer, as noiselessly as the lion watching them out of 
tawny, half-closed eyes, and knelt at her feet and en¬ 
circled her with his arms without touching her withal. 

“Thou wilt—thou wilt—when my plan is unfolded— 
my tale is told—thou wilt?” 

Zarah the liar, the hypocrite, the merciless, smiled gently 
as she looked down into the handsome face so near her 
own, nodded her head as she listened, and pushed away 
the encircling arms as she rose to her feet and moved a 
few steps. 

It was such a simple plan and such an effective plan 
for getting her out of her quandary, and the reward was 
such a simple one to grant—a solitary kiss, a thing of 
nothing, a sound, a fleeting second of rapture to him; 
yet she vowed in her treacherous heart that no man but 
the man she loved should hold her in his arms or other 
lips than his touch her beautiful, lying mouth. 

“Yea, verily, ’tis a good plan and easy,” she said, 
watching him out of the corner of her eyes. “Thou wilt 
spread tales of this white woman’s ingratitude and of 
her mocking of our sisters, so that the men, infuriated, 
fall upon her and kill her, not this night, but upon the 
night of feasting.” 

“Yea, mistress^ upon the night of feasting, so that the 


196 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


women, occupied in the task of cooking, know nothing of 
her death, and knowing nothing, will say nothing. Mis¬ 
tress,he ended in a whisper, “is it not a good plan and 
simple ?” 

Forgetting the Arabian proverb which teaches that 
“a spark can fire the whole quarter,” counting upon her 
power over the man, forgetting also that he was human 
even if he were a slave, she laughed mockingly as she 
answered: “Verily is it simple, and methinks that the 
little toil is not worthy of so great reward!” 

He crossed the room in one bound and swept her, fight¬ 
ing desperately, into his arm. He crushed her down upon 
his heart and laughed at her when she met her teeth in his 
forearm until the blood ran, and caught her hands in one 
of his and held her beautiful head pressed against his 
shoulder with his arm and kissed her scented hair; then 
flung her upon the divan and, laughing, turned to meet 
the lion as it sprang. 

He caught it in mid-air, grasping its throat with his 
left hand, and with a lightning sideways movement gripped 
its hind legs just at the joint with his right. 

The beast’s front paws just reached his chest and tore 
it with great claws until the blood streamed; it roared 
and choked and moaned as, holding it at arm’s length as 
it struggled and fought, the gigantic man bent the head 
back to meet the feet of the hind legs, which he as slowly 
bent over the back to meet the head. 

Zarah stood upon tiptoe, eyes blazing, hands clasped, 
insult forgotten in the wonderful feat of strength, of 
which even she did not think the man was capable. 

“Wah! Wah!” she cried, a very child of the desert, 
as she watched the animal fighting for its life. “ Wah! 
Wah!” she cried again, clapping her hands when Al-Asad, 
the magnificent half-caste, met the lion’s feet and head 
with a hardly perceptible effort, and at the little click 
which was all that announced the end, flung the carcass 
at the woman’s feet and walked towards the door. 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


197 


“Al-Asad! Thy wounds!” 

He turned and looked at the beautiful woman who, car¬ 
ried out of herself by the intoxication of the moment, 
held out her arms to him, then down at the mark of her 
teeth upon his arm. 

“My wound, O woman, is thy seal upon me, which I 
shall carry to the day when Allah, the one and only God, 
shall bid me leave this maze which we call life. I go to 
work upon my plan, so that the desire of thy heart is 
granted thee.” He paused for one moment with his 
hand upon the curtain and took his revenge for all the 
bitterness of the past. “I have kissed thy hair, I have 
held thee upon my heart, I have bruised thee. Go to the 
white man an thou wilt; he will find thee marked by 
another man. I will have nothing, not even one kiss 
from thee, until of thy own free will thou givest it 
me. 

He was gone, leaving her staring at the curtain. She 
laughed, laughed at the thought of the white man’s love 
which awaited her, laughed at the memory of the just 
fled hour, and raised her hands to call her body-woman; 
then turned her head and listened. 

From somewhere outside amongst the rocks came the 
sound of a man singing. 

Over and over again he sang the Arabian proverb 
mockingly, sweetly. 

“ ‘They wmoed her and she resisted; they left her, and 
she fell in love.’ ” 

Over and over again the Nubian sang the words in his 
golden tenor voice as he made his way to the men’s 
quarters. 

Then she clapped her hands sharply, threw herself on 
the couch, and sought for the photograph of Ralph 
Trenchard, which she wore upon her heart in Helen Ray¬ 
nor’s golden locket. 

***** 


198 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


“The fire of more than one war has been kindled by a single 
word ”— Arabic Proverb. 

The firelight shone on Al-Asad as he stood in the centre 
of an admiring circle. His bronzed skin glistened and 
his perfect teeth flashed and the blood upon his chest 
showed dark as he moved lightly upon his feet in describ¬ 
ing the fight with the lion. 

He had got the men interested and pleased and curious, 
and it would require but a very slight effort to get them 
angry. 

Their splendid teeth flashed as they laughed and shouted 
encouragement, and their shadows danced as they an¬ 
swered the Nubian’s every movement. They stretched out 
their hands and brought them slowly together, and bent 
this way and that way as they breathed heavily, in un¬ 
conscious imitation of the half-caste, as is the way of the 
Oriental when deeply interested in a story. 

“Wahl Wall!” they yelled. “What then? What then?” 

They shouted with laughter, gleefully, joyously, and 
exchanged remarks which were better left unprinted, when 
a youth ran forward and touched Al-Asad’s arm. 

“Now, O brother, tell us the tale of the tiger-cat. The 
lion is dead; didst thou perchance also draw the tiger- 
cat’s teeth and claws, after they had mauled thy flesh?” 

The youth wrapped his great cloak tight about him¬ 
self and, copying Zarah’s walk, strolled back to his place, 
where he stood looking over his shoulder at the Nubian 
from half-closed eyes. The men roared with laughter 
and yelled encouragement and suggestion until the moun¬ 
tains echoed and re-echoed to the sound. 

Al-Asad took advantage of the opening. 

He sprang at the youth, caught him, tightly wrapped 
in the great white cloak, held him easily above his head in 
spite of his struggles, then, still holding him horizontally, 
swung him round and round, with much the same move¬ 
ment as one uses in swinging clubs, plumped him on his 


199 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

feet, shook him like a rat, and flung him like a sack of 
dxirra back to his place, whilst the men roared with de¬ 
light. 

“I break thy neck, 0 brother, and the neck of any who 
dares to make mock of Zarah the Beautiful. She is a 
woman, but i6 she not the child of our dead chief? Did 
she not give us shelter when we fled from the wrath of the 
pursuers? Food when our bones wellnigh pierced the 
skin? Water when we thirsted? Then ...” 

“ ’Tis well said, O Lionheart, verily is thy speech of 
gold. . . 

“Does she not reward us when the toil is done?” con¬ 
tinued Al-Asad, taking no notice of the unseemly inter¬ 
ruption. “When the heat of the day is o’er and the 
peace of the night falleth apace.” He glanced down at 
the mark upon his arm, well pleased at the effect his 
flowing, if borrowed, rhetoric was having upon his un¬ 
suspecting audience. “Shall we not be grateful? Shall 
we not show her our gratitude? Shall we not—shall we 
not help her against her enemies—even as she helped 
us in our need?” 

He had the men in the hollow of his hand. 

Their knives flashed as they leapt to their feet, their 
voices sounded like thunder as they shouted in execration, 
cursed in volume, and clamoured to be led against the 
foe. 

Al-Asad gave them no time to collect their senses scat¬ 
tered by their desire for battle, murder and revenge. He 
hit whilst their wrath w r as at white heat, raining blows 
upon their pride and ultrasensitiveness. He seized the 
white cloak from the one nearest and wrapped it about 
him, and cleared a space by the strength of his good right 
arm. 

“Her enemy, my brethren, and thine, is a woman, nay! 
give ear for a while. Our mistress, with a desire to help 
her white prisoner—yea! even she—sat with her anon, 
whilst I sat without the curtain, unseen by either of them. 




200 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


Before Allah, they were as night and day, sun and moon, 
in their beauty. Yea! and I will see that thou speakest 
not again in this life, my brother, if thou essayest once 
more to open thy mouth, which is as wide and ugly as 
the storm-swept desert. And, behold! this is what mine 
eyes saw and mine ears heard. She mocked, this white 
she-devil, mocked the people of the desert, walked like 
thee, brother, this wise”—with all the aptitude of the 
negro, he bowed his legs and rolled as he walked towards 
Bowlegs, the finest horseman in the Nejd—“and sat cross¬ 
wise upon the cushions and rode like thee, little one”— 
he laughed and pointed at a youth who was noted for his 
ungainly seat upon horseback—“and made mock of our 
women as they draw water for her bath or grind the 
durra for her bread.” He imitated the surly negress 
with the gait of a lame hen, he also gave the quick move¬ 
ments of Namlah the Ant, then ran and barred the way 
as the men made a sudden, ugly rush. It was touch and 
go if he held them or if they overpowered him and, in one 
blinding moment of fury, rushed and killed Helen, thereby 
rousing the sleeping women and children and undoing all 
his cunning work. He laughed, laughed long and loud, 
until the place rang, laughed until, suspicious of being 
fooled, they hesitated and stopped. 

Then he beckoned them and, squatting upon his 
haunches, spoke to them in whispers, thereby imparting 
a feeling of mystery to the tale he recounted of Zarah’s 
lie, which they thoroughly appreciated, and her dilemma, 
which they laughed at right heartily. 

But he had reckoned without the love of gambling with 
which the Eastern is obsessed. 

The Patriarch, who looked for all the world like Abra¬ 
ham at his most benevolent, and who was the hardest 
rider to hounds, or, rather, into battle, and the most 
inveterate gambler in Arabia, held up his hand, upon 
which the rest of the inveterate gamblers nudged each 
other with the 7nijan y the small stick the Bedouin usually 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 201 

carries, and felt for their counters or dice or whatever 
they fancied most in games of chance. 

“Thou sayest, O Asad, mighty of muscle and clear of 
understanding, that our mistress desires the death of the 
white woman, so that there shall be a portion of truth 
in the tale she has told the white man of the death of this 
white woman, who still lives.” 

Al-Asad nodded. He was loth to see his plans go 
awry, but he would have been still more loth to lose the 
chance of an hour’s gambling. 

“We say that for her mocking this white woman shall 
die this night, thou sayest she must live until the night 
of the great feasting which our mistress prepareth for 
us, so that in the sounds of singing and dancing her pass¬ 
ing shall be unnoticed by the women, who, were it other¬ 
wise, might prattle about her death. I will play thee 
for her death! Choose thou the game.” 

Came a positive roar, which brought Helen upsitting 
upon her bed, as each man shouted to his neighbour, and 
Al-Asad drew from out his loin-cloth a set of cherished 
dice, whilst Yussuf drew nearer the fire with his counters 
in his hand. 

Logs were thrown on the fires, so that orange, red and 
yellow flames shot skywards, against which the infuriated, 
excited men stood out in startling relief as they gesticu¬ 
lated and laughed and cursed; bets were laid against the 
time of Helen Raynor’s death, and the particular kind 
of death she should die for her breaking of the great 
law of hospitality, with side bets upon every conceivable 
trifle which by the wildest stretch of the most prolific 
Oriental imagination could be possibly connected with 
the case. 

“Thou Yussuf!” shouted Bowlegs, as he walked towards 
the blind man with the roll of a sailing ship in the Bay. 
“My eldest daughter—who is as fair favoured as an 
ostrich without feathers—against thy spavined mare that 
the white woman dies upon the night of the feast.” 


202 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


Yussuf leaned forward so that the firelight shone upon 
his terrible face whilst the men gathered about the two, 
forgetting their own concerns, for the moment, in the 
interest they always took in the doings and sayings of 
the afflicted man. 

“I prefer the gentle company of my spavined mare, 
though she be useless for the chase or the battle, O my 
brother, but I will lay my jewel-encrusted nagileh against 
a handful of dates that the white woman dies to-night. 
This woman without compassion, this breaker of the 
Arab’s law. I have suffered much, my brethren, but to 
the death I uphold our mistress against one who abuses 
her. For is it not written, ‘A well from which thou drink- 
est, throw not a stone in it’?” Yussuf was playing to 
the gallery and throwing sand across his brethren’s vision, 
whilst praying secretly to Allah the Compassionate and 
the Merciful to hold the scales of justice well balanced 
between the two women. 

The benevolent looking Patriarch, who had more death 
notches in his favourite spear than any man in the Pen¬ 
insula, once more held up his hand. He stroked his flow¬ 
ing white beard as he looked at Al-Asad, who sat with 
no sign of his inner perturbation upon his handsome face, 
whilst at the top of his voice Yussuf cursed the white 
woman in her past, present and future, as well as in her 
morals, looks and ancestry. 

“So it has been arranged, O my children,” said the 
Patriarch, who looked as though he should have been 
patting the heads of the third or fourth generation clus¬ 
tering about his knees instead of gambling on a woman’s 
death. “If our brother Al-Asad throws the dice so that 
three sixes fall upwards at the same time, then the thrice- 
accursed woman dies upon the night of feasting and 
banqueting. If Fate decrees that I throw these three 
figures of the same value at the same time, kismet , ’tis the 
will of Allah that she dies to-night. Throw, my son!” 

Al-Asad shook the dice between his slender hands and 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


203 


tossed them high into the air. The men backed as the 
ivory squares fell amongst them and made way for the 
Patriarch and Al-Asad to examine them. 

The Patriarch raised his hands, Al-Asad laughed softly, 
the men howled in disappointment. 

The half-caste had thrown three sixes. 

In one brief second the chances of a whole night of 
gambling, to be followed by the exhilarating task of put¬ 
ting an offender to death, had been wiped out, yet by the 
decision of the dice did those uneducated, semi-savage, 
grievously disappointed men abide. 

True, they turned in the direction of the dwelling 
wherein Helen slept and fingered their knives, but more 
from the rancour aroused by her insult than with any in¬ 
tention of disputing the untoward ending to what might 
have been such an enjoyable night. 

The Patriarch looked at them and grieved for their 
disappointment, as much as for his own, and walked to 
a little distance, where he lifted his benign countenance 
to the stars as he worked his wits, which in their cunning 
could have given points to a monkey; then he turned and 
spread wide his arms, looking for all the world as though 
he had stepped out of a picture by some qld master, and 
called his sons so that they ran to him, like the children 
they really were, in spite of their ferocious appearance 
and still more ferocious deeds. 

“Al-Asad the Lion of nimble wit saith that ’twere wise 
to allow our mistress to wed this white man—for a space. 
Allah alone wots of this power which drives the white to 
the dark, the fat to the lean, the well-favoured to the ill- 
favoured, and which causes more trouble than the rat in 
the corn or the viper on the hearth.” 

“And the tiger-cat to meet its teeth in the flesh of the 
slave,” shrilled the youth who had been swung like a 
club, but who had revived sufficiently to gamble with the 
best. 

The men, restored to good humour by the promise in 


204 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


the old man’s voice, shouted with laughter as they aimed 
friendly blows at the Nubian, who stood close to the 
Patriarch’s side. 

“My son!” said the old man as he stroked his beard, 
which was about his one possession he would not have 
staked against fortune. “I will play thee for the death 
of the white man. If I throw three sixes he dies this 
night, if thou throwest three sixes then he takes Zarah 
the Gentle as wife for the length of six moons, after which 
he dies so that thou mayest take his place at her side. 
And may Allah show thee the path through the maze of 
love which spreads about thee and her and the white 
man.” 

Helen, sitting on the edge of her bed, covered her ears 
with her hands at the savagery in the shouts of the men, 
whilst Yussuf strode forward with his counters in his 
hand. 

“My spavined mare against a bowl of rice cooked by 
thy daughter—and may her cooking be better favoured 
than is her face—that the white man—and may his soul 
be as black in Jehannam as his skin is white on earth— 
dieth this dawn in the stead of the thrice accursed white 
woman,” he cried, whilst praying secretly and fervently 
to Allah the Merciful to strike the Patriarch dead. 

They threw the dice unavailingly till dawn, whilst the 
elder women, wakened by the gentle method of applying 
the foot to their slumbering persons, rose and made coffee 
for their lords, half of whom, at the last throw of the 
dice, were to find themselves minus coffee beans, daughters, 
horses, weapons or 'piastres . 

The sky shone like an opal in the east, the birds sang, 
the smoke of the fires in the women’s quarter clung like 
mist against the mountainside as Al-Asad shook the dice 
in his hands and flung them up to the flaming heavens. 

The men backed as the ivory squares fell amongst them, 
and made way for the Patriarch and the Nubian to ex¬ 
amine the result. 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


205 


The Patriarch raised his hands, Al-Asad laughed, the 
men shouted with laughter and smote him friendly-wise, 
hip and thigh. 

He had thrown three sixes. 

And half an hour later Helen, little recking how near 
she and the man she loved had been to death, stood just 
inside her door, w r atching the magnificent sight of the 
shouting, laughing men as they rode their horses up 
the steep incline on their way to a gallop across the 
desert. 

Her eyes were full of perplexit} r , her heart beat heavily 
in an unaccountable fear, but, determined that the spy 
should have naught to tell her mistress, she let drop the 
curtain and stretched herself upon her bed. 

Al-Asad ran up the steps to his mistress’s dwelling and 
entered her room. 

She watched him from under her arm as she lay upon 
the divan and smiled at the mastery of the man’s bearing, 
then looked up at him out of sleepy, opalescent eyes as 
he knelt beside her so that his face was on a level with 
hers. 

“He is thine, woman. The white man is thine for a 
space. I, Al-Asad the slave, have given him unto thee. 
I have worked well for thee, mistress, I have worked well 
for thee!” 

He rose as he spoke and swept her into his arms, and 
laughed down at her as she struggled desperately. 

Then he kissed her scented hair, and held her down 
upon his heart so that she could not move. 

“I give thee the white man! For a spell! I, thy mate!” 

He crushed her until she lay as still as death in his 
arms, then flung her on the cushions and ran out of the 
dwelling and down the steps to the stables, where he led 
out his mare, and, without saddle or bridle or harness 
whatever, leapt across her back and rode her, shouting 
with the joy of life, up the steep path and out to the 
desert he loved. 



CHAPTER XVI 


“It is an hour's poison — Arabic Proverb. 

If Ralph Trenchard had been a guest instead of a 
prisoner, if he had been the men’s blood-brother in crime 
instead of an intruder likely, for a space, to become their 
leader by marriage through the love-madness of the 
Sheikh’s daughter, more solicitude could not have been 
shown for his amusement and -welfare in the days which 
preceded the great feast at which he was to be tricked 
or publicly coerced into a betrothal -with Zarah. 

As a rider and a shot, he had won the men’s hearts; 
as a foreigner who menaced the peace of the community, 
he stood in hourly danger of his life, if he had but known it. 

He did not know. 

With his thoughts given entirely to the memory of the 
girl he loved, lacking, through her death, the spur neces¬ 
sary to send him hot-foot back upon the road to civiliza¬ 
tion, he had unquestioningly accepted the explanation 
Zarah had given him of the mistake her men had made, 
and which had ended in the disastrous battle, and had 
set himself to live but for the passing day. He had 
longed for adventure, he had found adventure, and when 
the novelty passed off and the salt of hunting with 
cheetahs, racing across the moonlit desert, pitting his skill 
with rifle and horse against the finest riders and shots 
in the world, lost its savour, then he would make tracks 
for his own land, where the fare, if somewhat lacking in 
spice, is figuratively and literally less calculated to upset 
the digestion. 

Having forgotten the European half of Zarah’s par¬ 
entage, and lacking woman’s intuition and keener pS 3 7 cho- 

206 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


207 


logical perception, he put her almost extravagant hospi¬ 
tality down to friendliness arising out of her friendship 
with Helen and her meeting with him in the past, just as 
he put the men’s apparent friendliness down to the per¬ 
fect and world-famed hospitality of the Arab. He failed 
to grasp the fact that their intense interest in the sports 
arose from an almost savage determination to beat him, 
or to notice the ring of triumph in their shouting, or 
the bitterness in their eyes when either they triumphed 
or failed against him. 

He came to look forward to his daily meeting with the 
men in the company of their mistress, well content, in 
his British detestation of all outward show of feeling, 
to hide his grievous hurt under a cloak of seeming in¬ 
difference. 

It was an adventure, and would end, as all adventure 
must, if a taste of salt is to be left on Life’s palate. 

He loathed the luxury of his dwelling, and longed to ask 
the meaning of many things, amongst them the cause of 
the dogs’ hatred for the Arabian woman and of the empty 
sockets in the face of the man he encountered so often 
on his path, but with whom he had not spoken. 

But believing that his adventure must soon end, and 
knowing the Oriental’s dislike of investigation into what 
concerns him privately, he asked no questions, in which 
he showed his wisdom; truth, in an answer to a straight 
question, being about as rare in the East as moss in the 
desert. He rode and bathed and hunted and ate and slept 
whilst waiting for something to fix his departure, ignorant 
of the fact that Helen, watched closely day and night, 
a prey to an overwhelming, secret fear, bravely endured 
the discomforts of her restricted life on the far side of 
the jutting rock wall he could see from his door. 

He had almost forgotten Zarah’s criminal reputation; 
had grown accustomed to her continual presence and well- 
meant, if tiresome, ministrations. He thought that the 
day of sport and night of feasting and dancing had been 


208 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


arranged to celebrate her union with the handsome 
Nubian, against whom he had found himself so often 
pitted in the sports. 

He turned to look for Al-Asad as he raced at Zarah’s 
side across the desert at the head of a hundred men and, 
carried out of himself at the magnificent sight, shouted 
as he rode, taking no more notice than they did of the ex¬ 
traordinary appearance of the sky to the south-east, 
mistaking the distant phenomenon for a part of the sun¬ 
set, which was making a blazing, fiery furnace of the sky 
in the west. 

Zarah and Ralph Trenchard headed fifty men, who, 
their white cloaks streaming behind them in the evening 
breeze, shouted and laughed as they rode, separated by 
the Patriarch, Al-Asad and Bowlegs from fifty of their 
brethren, who, their white cloaks streaming behind them 
in the evening breeze, shouted and laughed as they urged 
their hejeen, or dromedaries, to their swiftest pace. 

To mix camels and horses in a hunt, or at any other 
time, is a dire and foolish and fruitless task, giving rise 
to pitched battles between the beasts and broken heads 
amongst their riders. But Zarah’s men looked forward 
to the inevitable fight which decided the question of the 
horse or the camel’s precedence over the secret path at 
the end of a day’s hunting; it gave them all such a chance 
of paying off bad debts and old scores and such an 
appetite for the meal prepared for them by their patient, 
down-trodden womenfolk. 

Al-Asad sang at the top of his golden tenor voice 
as he guided his magnificent dromedary from Oman with 
his feet, and with his spear prodded the cheetahs, with 
which they had been hunting, between the bars of the 
specially made cage strapped on the back of the dromedary 
he led. Bowlegs led another dromedary, upon whose 
shedad or baggage saddle were piled the gazelle, ostrich 
and bunches of kangaroo-rat which constituted the not 
particularly good bag for a day’s hunting in the desert. 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


209 


The Patriarch, looking as must Moses have looked if 
he bestrode a camel in rounding up the trapesing tribes of 
Israel, rode between the two men, with whom he conversed 
as best he could for the laughter and shouts of the men 
and the rumblings of the camels. 

He looked at Ralph Trenchard and Zarah as they 
rode together just ahead and shook his head. 

“ ’Tis best for the horse to mate with the mare and the 
white with the white,” he said, “for the mule is hut a 
beast of burden, to which is apportioned a grievous fare 
of blows, and the half-caste is but a thing of scorn even 
to the pure-jbred donkey-boy of the cities.” 

Al-Asad stopped his singing and stared towards the 
west, as Bowlegs made answer as best he could for the 
sounds which proceeded from his camel’s throat and which 
denoted fear. 

“Yea, oh, father,” he shouted in gasps. “What afflicts- 
this evil beast? The half-caste is of no account, as we 
have lately learned through the death of the great Sheikh 
Hamed’s first born by his white wife. Methinks danger 
threatens, for, behold, this thrice accursed child of sin 
trembles as he runs. And the offspring of yon two would 
have the blood of three countries in its veins, so ’twere 
well to fell the tree before it bears fruit. And may Allah, 
in His mercy, give me a camel in paradise in the stead 
of this bag of shivers I now bestride.” 

Al-Asad shaded his eyes from the glare of the evening 
sky and pointed towards the west. 

“What seest thou yonder? A string of ostrich, a fleeing 
herd of gazelle, or Yussuf hunting with his dogs?” 

The Patriarch, with eyes like a hawk, looked in the 
direction and laughed. 

“ ’Tis Blind Yussuf with ‘His Eyes,’ followed by his 
dogs. They fly like the wind towards the mountains. 
From whence do they come and for what reason do they 
fly like the wind?” 

Al-Asad made a trumpet of his hands and sent a call 


210 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


ringing 1 across the miles of desert sand, upon which 
Ralph Trenchard, whose horse was in a sweat of terror, 
turned and looked at him and in the direction in which 
Zarah was also looking. 

Yussuf had evidently heard the call. 

Against the strangely angry-looking sky he stood out 
in black silhouette, with a team of dogs racing like the 
wind at his side, and the dumb youth, pillion-wise, behind 
him. 

A strange couple truly, the one with the sight, the other 
with the speech, rendering each other service, until, when 
together, they each spoke and saw with the other’s vision 
and tongue. 

They rode together now, and the youth pointed back¬ 
wards and then forwards, and they stayed not their flight 
for a moment; neither did they try to change their course 
so as to approach their mistress. 

Al-Asad looked behind to where the youth pointed and 
gave a shout of fear, upon which strange sound Zarah 
and Ralph Trenchard and the entire body of men looked 
back and, in a desperate effort, tried to check their beasts. 

They might as well have tried to stop a runaway engine 
as horses and camels fleeing before the dread simoom 
which advanced slowly behind them like some great, evil, 
purple giant or monster of the underworld. 

The simoom! 

A column of poisonous gas, twin of the cyclone, with 
naught in common with the sirocco; a slowly moving 
column, whipping the air into gusts, as violent and hot 
as though blown straight out of the mouth of hell; a 
phenomenon peculiar to the tropics’ desert places, fall¬ 
ing upon the desert wayfarer, over him and gone, in the 
passing of two or three minutes if he happens to be 
favoured by the gods, in fifteen if ill-luck dogs his path. 

A terrible, writhing, twisting scourge of scorching air, 
with a centre as calm as a lake under a summer’s sky 
and as full of poison as a scandal-monger’s tongue. If 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


211 


the wayfarer should not be mounted upon some four- 
footed beast, endowed with such speed and endurance as 
will carry him out of its range, then there is only one 
course left, and that is for him to lay flat upon the 
ground, to cover his head, to scrape a hole in the sand into 
which to bury his face, and to hang on to his breath and 
commend his spirit to his Maker, until the fell monster 
has passed over him and proceeded upon its death-dealing 
way. 

Zarah was not a leader of men, or the mother of her 
children, or a child of the desert for nothing. 

She turned and raised her right hand, and smiled at 
her men when they shouted and closed in a ring about her, 
the horses on her right, the camels on her left, whilst 
Al-Asad urged his dromedary to her side and caught 
her mare’s halter, so that she rode between him and Ralph 
Trenchard. 

“It’s almost certain death,” she shouted to Ralph 
Trenchard as he pressed his horse against her mare as 
they tore like the wind in the direction of the mountains 
they could not even see. “Almost certain death if we 

cannot outride it. The horses are-■” She gave a 

sharp cry as a great puff of scorching wind blew over 
them, then shouted to Al-Asad. 

“Those on horses are to follow me, twenty yards ahead; 
they are to turn with me and ride back on the camels to 
stop their flight. When they meet they are to fling their 
cloaks over the camels’ heads. The camels are to be got 
to their knees; those who ride horses are to dismount 
and to let them go.” She was magnificent in her courage 
and beautiful in her seeming solicitude for her men, where¬ 
as, if only the truth had been known, she was merely 
revelling in the fight against almost overwhelming odds. 

She turned to Ralph Trenchard and held out her hand 
as she swept forward at the head of the fifty horsemen, 
who rode with their knees, holding their cloaks in their 
hands. 



212 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


“Turn!” she cried, though her words were drowned in 
the thunder of the gallop and the moaning of the wind, 
which blew like a furnace from the purple cloud close 
upon their heels. “Fight them back, fight them. Follow 
me!” 

The terrified horses were turned almost in a line and, 
headed by Zarah, with Ralph Trenchard and Al-Asad on 
either side, charged the camels. 

The impact was terrific. 

The two lines of huge beasts met with a crash, which 
sounded to Ralph Trenchard like the splitting of rocks, 
as the fifty horsemen fought the camels back and to a 
standstill, flinging their cloaks over their heads. 

“Dismount!” shouted Zarah, as she rode from end to 
end, whilst, swaying and bending, the column of poison 
gas crept slowly across the sands. “Let the horses go! 
Get the camels down! Dismount for your lives !” 

She swung from the saddle and fought her way amongst 
the seething beasts to where Ralph Trenchard helped to 
force the camels down by kicks and blows upon the knees. 

“Thy heavy boot,” she gasped; “bring that camel down, 
then lie beside it, and—and-” 

She swayed and choked as a blast of poisonous wind 
blew right across them, then staggered closer to Ralph 
Trenchard as, choking, gasping, he brought the camel to 
the ground with the heel of his heavy riding-boot upon its 
knees, and fell. He fell beside Zarah, his arm across her. 

Holding his breath for one perilous moment, he lifted 
his head and looked about him. 

The camels lay humped together, their long necks 
stretched upon the ground, their muzzles buried in the 
sands; the men lay alongside, their heads pushed under 
the beasts’ heaving flanks, their faces wrapped in their 
cloaks and pressed into the sand. Far out in the desert, 
tails and manes flying in the scorching wind, the horses 
fled, close together, as though pursued by a thousand 
devils. The sound of their hoofs upon the sand came 



ZARAH THE CRUEL 


213 


faintly, like distant thunder, to be lost in the moaning of 
the dread simoom as it advanced slowly, writhing, bend¬ 
ing, flinging its purple draperies heavenward like some 
gigantic dancer seen in nightmare. 

It was a pillar of horror against the night sky, in front 
of which fled life, in the wake of which lay a path of death. 

Then Ralph Trenchard, with heart hammering, blood 
thundering in his ears, and brain beating as though it 
must break the skull, struggled to his knees. The world, 
like a molten mass of red-hot lead, seemed to weigh upon 
his shoulders; a band of white-hot iron to encircle his 
chest; a sponge soaked with boiling water to lay upon 
his face as he struggled to get out of his coat. 

He fell forward upon his hands, the sweat pouring 
down his agonized face; he raised himself and with a 
mighty effort pulled his coat off. The fringe of the air 
eddies lifted the loose ends of the men’s cloaks and tore 
at the coat he grasped between his teeth as he pressed 
close to the Arabian girl, who lay motionless on the 
ground. He laid himself down close beside her, so close 
that his cheek touched hers and lifting her head, with 
infinite pain spread the coat upon the ground and wrapped 
it about her head and his own head, even as the men had 
wrapped their cloaks, and held the edges tight as the full 
weight of the simoom's poison-filled centre passed over 
them. 

Favoured of the gods, they lay for two minutes under 
the scorching weight—two minutes in which the camel, 
driven mad by the cheetahs which fought with frenzy in 
their cage upon its back, scrambled to its feet and fled 
into the centre of the simoom , there to drop dead; a few 
seconds in which it seemed to the men that great steam¬ 
rollers of red-hot steel passed backwards and forwards 
over them, as they prayed to Allah the Merciful, and held 
their breath for an eternity of time which was counted 
in one hundred and twenty ticks of the watch upon the 
white man’s wrist. 


214 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


They lay long after the pillar of horror had passed, 
incapable of movement, their heads pressed under the 
heaving flanks of the camels, which lay there motionless, 
and were quite capable of lying there, in their camel¬ 
headed foolishness, until another simoom should overtake 
them. 

The desert stretched peacefully under the glittering 
stars when Al-Asad stirred, pulled the cloak from about 
his head and his head from under the camel’s flank. He 
stretched his aching limbs and felt his throbbing head, 
laughing huskily as he kicked the nearest camel into a 
consciousness of life and lifted his nearest unconscious 
neighbour and propped him against the camel’s back. 
He sat for awhile filling his lungs with the desert air, then 
rose stiffly and crossed to where Ralph Trenchard and 
the Arabian girl lay side by side as still as death. He 
fingered his dagger as he looked at the white man, then 
laughed and shook his head and removed the coat from 
about their heads and twined his slender hands in the 
woman’s hair, then removed Ralph Trenchard’s arm from 
about her shoulders and lifted her up against his heart. 

“Mine!” he said gently, then laughed softly as he 
looked at the men and camels lying as though dead, and, 
with the touch of perversity which came, perhaps, from the 
mixing of the blood in his veins, bent and laid Zarah in 
Ralph Trenchard’s arms just as he regained his senses 
and, struggling to his knees, lifted her out of pure solici¬ 
tude against his shoulder. There was nothing, however, 
to tell her that his arms had been placed about her simply 
out of anxiety for her well-being and not in love, so that 
when she opened her eyes and looked up into his hand¬ 
some face, bent down so near her own, she naturally con¬ 
cluded that the game was almost won. 

She looked at Al-Asad with eyes devoid of expression, 
but got to her feet at the smile in his and sat down upon 
the camel nearest to her. 

“Kick them, Al-Asad, all of them, men and beasts, to 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


215 


see if there are any alive,” she said curtly, anxious to 
be rid of him, and sat and indifferently watched the efforts 
of men and camels as they struggled back to life, and 
merely nodded at the Nubian when he reported that one 
man and two dromedaries would not respond to his drub¬ 
bing. 

She had fought for her men’s lives when danger 
threatened, but rather for the love of gaining a victory 
over so dire a foe than for any anxiety she felt for them, 
and now, thirsty, hungry, alive but uncomfortable, she 
did not care one piastre if they or the camels struggled 
back to life or remained where they were to die. She 
wanted to get back to her own dwelling; she wanted to 
ride there alone with the white man who had held her in 
his arms, at least, so she thought, sheltering her from 
death; she frowned as the men swayed drunkenly upon 
their feet, laughing stupidly as they staggered amongst 
the camels. 

“Asad!” she cried sharply, showing how little she 
understood of the white man’s character by so shamelessly 
exposing her want of pity and consideration for others. 
“Bring two camels, thine for our guest and yon for me. 
Thou canst return with one or two or more of thy brethren 
upon one hejeen , clustered like bees about a honey-pot 
if-” 

She stopped and got to her feet and laid her hand on 
Ralph Trenchard’s arm. 

“Camels!” she said briefly. 

There was no sound, neither was there anything in the 
desert to be seen. 

“I think you’re mistaken,” replied Ralph Trenchard. 
He spoke tersely, his admiration for the girl’s courage 
suddenly turned to a great dislike through her callous 
behaviour towards the visibly suffering men. “By Jove! 
you’re right, though!” 

Headed by Yussuf, with “His Eyes” pillion-wise behind 
him, fifty men mounted on camels and leading fifty more 



216 ZARAH THE CRUEL 

camels suddenly appeared out of the shadows in the far 
distance. 

Zarah frowned and cursed under her breath at being 
thwarted in her intention of riding back to the Sanctuary 
alone with Ralph Trenchard. 

“Splendid man, Yussuf,” he said, watching the ap¬ 
proaching camels. “Absolutely devoted to you. I sup¬ 
pose he raced home in front of that poisonous pestilence 
so as to get you a relay of camels and emergency rations 
and remedies. You’re lucky to have anybody like that 
about you, don’t you think?” 

Zarah did not answer. She crossed to Al-Asad, there¬ 
by giving Yussuf the opportunity he wanted and Ralph 
Trenchard the surprise of his life. 

Guided by “His Eyes,” the blind man brought his camel 
to a halt within a foot or so of where the white man stood, 
whilst the fifty brace of camels deployed in a semi-circle 
behind him. 

He bent down and searched with his hand until he 
touched Ralph Trenchard’s shoulder; then he bent lower 
still. 

“Helena!” he whispered, and pressed his hand down 
hard as Ralph Trenchard started. 

“Helena!” he repeated, put his finger to his lips, 
straightened himself and rode, with much shouting, to¬ 
wards Zarah, followed by fifty brace of grunting camels. 


CHAPTER XVII 


“It may be fire; on the morrow it will be ashes.” 

—Arabic Proverb. 

From dawn till dusk the day of festival had been passed 
in brief, light-hearted excursions into the desert, sports, 
and those infantile amusements so dear to the complex 
Oriental mind, during all of which Zarah had walked 
amongst her men with Ralph Trenchard at her side. 

Anticipating the great feast which would be spread for 
them an hour after sunset, the men refrained from eating 
more than a handful of dates, whilst drinking innumerable 
cups of black coffee, so that they moved about restlessly 
during the day, walking lightly and talking excitedly, 
with eyes which shone like polished stones. 

They chased each other like goats over the rocks, 
wrestled friendly-wise like boys, inspected the cook- 
ing-pots and worried, almost to death, the patient, 
down-trodden womenfolk, whose only share of the enter¬ 
tainment would be the scraps left over from the feast. 

So mercurial became the atmosphere towards sunset 
that the men roared with laughter when, laden with a bowl 
of spicy stew, of which the chief ingredients were kanga¬ 
roo-rat and rice, the fourth wife of Bowlegs slipped on 
the steps and immersed herself in the succulent mess. 
They picked her up and, in all fun, threw her into the 
river, and stripped and dived in after her, fighting each 
other for the privilege of saving her, before she disap¬ 
peared into the cavern through which the river raced. 
They fought each other light-heartedly. They looked 
upon Zarah the Beautiful more in the light of a trust from 
the dead Sheikh whom they had loved than their real 
leader. Superstition and animal magnetism bound them 

217 


218 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


to her more than anything else, and they saw no harm in 
her marrying the white prisoner for a space, so long as 
there should be nothing permanent in the union. 

Everything had been arranged for a happy ending to 
the day. 

After the feast Zarah and her white lover would appear, 
followed by one of the many bands of the Ghowazy- 
Barameke , which are formed from a certain tribe of 
hereditary prostitutes who wander through city, town 
and village and from oasis to oasis. 

Following that diversion, the Patriarch would arise, 
clothed in new raiment, to acquaint the white man of the 
honour which the community intended to confer upon 
him, incidentally allowing him to understand that, if he 
liked, he could choose death in preference to tying a tiger- 
cat to his hearthrug. 

Not that they thought he would for one moment. 

They knew of the long hours the two had spent together 
far into the night; of the rides a deux they had taken in 
the desert at sunrise, sunset, and in the light o’ the moon; 
had seen him clasping the girl to his heart after the pass¬ 
ing of the poisonous pestilence only seven days ago, and, 
quite naturally, had put their own construction upon it 
all. 

Who wouldn’t? 

And knowing as much about the Western mind as their 
mistress, were just as completely at sea as she. 

Having seen nothing of Helen since the night when 
Al-Asad had whipped them into fury with the tales of her 
ingratitude and mocking, and with other and more inter¬ 
esting things than her death upon their minds, they had 
ceased to think about her; in fact, if it had not been 
for the hatred of their womenfolk, which had been roused 
by the Nubian’s tales of her mocking of them, some of them 
would have quite willingly sent her back to Hutah. They 
were too well-fed, too secure, for hate or love to endure. 
They worried about nothing, yet a certain restlessness and 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


219 


incertitude caused them to press about Ralph Trenchard 
when he walked, most friendly-wise, amongst them this 
day of festival; to lightly finger his clothes, to brush 
against him and to look at him in the strange, unseeing 
manner of the Oriental, lost in contemplation. 

So mercurial became the atmosphere after the feasting 
in the great Hall, where the men filled the vacuum caused 
by abstinence with highly spiced viands and wines for¬ 
bidden by the Prophet, that it required but a spark to 
set their minds ablaze. 

Replete, they lay upon the floor chiding and tormenting 
the elder and more ugly of the women, who ran amongst 
them with braziers and coffee or with bowls of water for 
the washing of hands, whilst the younger ones sped hither- 
thither in the task of clearing away the debris of the 
feast before the advent of the mistress they so sorely 
dreaded. 

Al-Asad sat cross-legged upon the floor near the steps 
leading up to the dais. Nude, save for the loin-cloth, 
he looked a giant amongst the men who, barefooted or 
sandalled, with black or striped kerchief round the head, 
lounged in the long shirt, open to the waist and bound 
about the middle by the leather thong, universally worn 
by the Arab. The Patriarch, wrapped in a cloak which 
added much to his dignity, sat upon a pile of cushions near 
the first of the columns. Blind Yussuf sat upon the floor 
against the wall, with “His Eyes” beside him. 

Following upon the blind man’s whisper of Helen’s 
name one whole long week ago, the subsequent and strange 
behaviour of “His Eyes” had given Ralph Trenchard 
cause to think. 

The dumb youth would touch him upon the arm to 
attract his attention, then touch his face and point in¬ 
sistently at the rock wall behind which Helen lived, and, 
illiterate, as are most Arabs, would shake his head when 
offered pencil and paper. 

He had tried vainly by sign to acquaint the white man 


220 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


of the white woman’s presence in the camp, a piece of 
self-constituted diplomacy which would have much dis¬ 
pleased Yussuf. 

The mercurial atmosphere had affected Ralph Tren- 
chard. 

True, he had not subsisted upon a handful of dates and 
unlimited cups of strong coffee throughout the day, but 
Yussuf’s whispered word, the youth’s strange pantomime, 
a certain watchfulness he noticed amongst the men, and 
an extraordinary solicitude for his comfort and welfare 
on the part of Zarah, had wellnigh brought him to the 
limit of endurance during the past week. The novelty had 
worn off, the salt had lost its savour, and he had deter¬ 
mined, poor, unsuspecting soul, as he waited to make his 
way to the great Hall to witness the dancing, to start 
for Hutah within the next ten days. 

In one word, everyone was on tenter-hooks this festive 
eve, and as ready to fly at each other’s throat as any 
two wild beasts of the desert. The rock-pigeons, spar¬ 
rows, hoopoes and other birds which abounded in this 
watered sanctuary in a desert waste rose in clouds at the 
ringing shouts of laughter and ribald jokes with which the 
men greeted Zarah’s herald, the camp jester, in the mis¬ 
shapen form of a dwarf holding a veritable tangle of black 
and white monkeys. Following him came four handsome 
youths carrying gigantic circular fans of peacock 
feathers, and after them fifteen little maids—who ought 
to have been abed—with bowls of perfumed water, which 
they sprinkled on the floor. 

Then the men sprang to their feet and shouted, until 
Helen, alone, desperate from the solitude of the last ter¬ 
rible week, ran to her door, only to be pushed back, and 
none too gently, by the surly negress, who longed in¬ 
ordinately to be with her sisters as they devoured the 
remains of the great feast. 

Zarah entered alone, her immense jewel-encrusted train 
sweeping like a flood over Yussuf’s feet as he crept 


221 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

stealthily along the wall and slipped through the door 
into the night. 

For an instant she stopped so that the men should fully 
take in the beautiful picture she made against the flaring 
orange lining of her train. 

Her limbs showed snow-white through the transparent 
voluminous trousers, her body, bare save for the glittering 
breast-plates and jewelled bands which held it, shone like 
ivory, whilst she seemed to tower, even amongst her men, 
owing to the mass of black and orange osprey which 
sprang from the centre of her jewelled head-dress. 

Fifteen little boys—who too ought to have been abed— 
spread wide her train as she walked slowly over the won¬ 
derful mosaic floor, with all the grace of her Andalusian 
mother, between the rows of shouting men. She stayed 
for one moment as she drew level with the Nubian stand¬ 
ing like a giant, and, under the impulse of her innate 
cruelty, looked at him sweetly from half-closed eyes. 

He raised his hands to his forehead, so that a mark 
made by pearly teeth showed upon his arm, and looked at 
her from head to foot and smiled as the crimson swept 
her face. Then he gathered the full burden of her train 
into his arms and followed her up the seven steps and 
spread it wide as she sat down in the ivory chair, then 
knelt and kissed her knees and her golden-sandalled feet. 

She leant back and watched the thirty children climb on 
to the stone stools, upon which had sat the thirty Holy 
Fathers centuries ago, and looked down at the hawk¬ 
like, eager men who watched her, and up to the star- 
strewn, vaulted ceiling, from which hung silver lamps 
which drew lustre from her jewels and her eyes and the 
precious stones glittering in the columns. 

Against the golden background of the Byzantine wall, 
with the great fans moving slowly above her head, she 
was barbaric in her beauty, and not for one moment did 
she or the men doubt that the white man had fallen a 
victim to her enchantment. 


222 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


She rose when Ralph Trenchard stood in the doorway 
looking across the hall in bewilderment, and, holding out 
her hands, descended the steps, her great glittering train 
spread out behind her like an enormous fan. She walked 
slowly, whilst the men whispered remarks, which were 
better left unprinted, the one to the other, and the fifteen 
mites leapt from the stools, upon which had stood the 
prisoners from Damascus, and ran to lift her train as she 
turned with her hand in Ralph Trenchard’s. 

He looked at her from head to foot. He gazed at the 
superb figure, the jewels, the beautiful face, the crimson- 
tipped fingers, and, with all the perversity of the human, 
was suddenly overwhelmed with a longing for just one 
glimpse of the girl he had loved, in her riding kit, with 
her sweet, laughing, fair face turned up to the light of 
the stars. 

“Thank God,” he said to himself as he walked up the 
steps by the side of the beautiful Arabian. “Thank 
heaven this is the end of this awful time, and I shall soon 
be riding back along the road I came with her, my Helen.” 

He looked down at the men, to find their eyes fixed upon 
him, and wondered vaguely at the feeling of tension that 
pervaded the place; then forgot all about it at the sound 
of a drum outside the great door. 

With great shouting and to the shrilling of reed pipes 
and the throbbing of drums the dancers burst through the 
doorway. They had been enticed across the desert by the 
biggest fee they had ever been offered in the whole of their 
vagrant life, and had thoroughly enjoyed the blindfolding 
and their mysterious entry into the strange camp where 
they had been so lavishly entertained. 

Men and women, youths and girls, virile, joyous, burned 
deep brown by the sun and the storm, with the knowledge 
of life in their flashing eyes, the love of adventure in their 
hearts and the call of great spaces in their vagabond 
blood, they stood quite still for a moment and then moved. 

They danced to the sound of the drum, the shrilling 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


223 


of reed pipes, the clapping of hands, the beating of bare 
feet. They danced in groups, in pairs; one, thin as a 
lath, supple as a snake, danced by herself, driving the men 
wellnigh mad, so that the silver lamps swung to their 
shouting until she dropped in a heap at the foot of the' 
dais. They sang as they danced, until the echoes of the 
wild Arabian love songs and battle songs beat against 
the star-strewn, vaulted ceiling; they laughed and clapped 
their hands in joy, and swayed and rocked to a great 
moaning; they advanced to the foot of the dais, caring 
little, in the power of their ancestry, which stretches back 
beyond the days of the Pharaohs, for the imperious woman 
who sprang from Allah knew where, or the man who, 
handsome as he w r as, came from a foreign land. 

They danced for two hours. Danced to earn their huge 
fee, to amuse, to entertain, to end in dancing for the 
sheer love of it. 

In and out of the columns and amongst the men went 
their slender bare feet to the flashing of knives, the clash 
of cymbals and the call of the Arabian love songs. They 
met, they parted, they met again; whilst the girl as thin 
as a lath, as supple as a snake, sprang up and stood upon 
one spot, moving only from her v r aist upwards. 

And as suddenly as they had come, as suddenly they 
departed, to the rolling of the drums and the reed pipes’ 
sweet shrilling, whilst some of the men crossed to the door 
to watch them descend the steps, and others got up and 
moved about, restless under the excitation of the nerves 
invariably caused by the Ghowazy-Barameke. 

Followed a certain time set apart for the drinking of 
wines forbidden by the Prophet, the eating of the sweet¬ 
meats and the lighting of hubble-bubbles and cigarettes. 

“You like it?” said Zarah, so softly, as Ralph Tren- 
chard lit her cigarette. He bent to catch her words, then 
drew his great ivory chair nearer still and leaned towards 
her as he talked, upon which actions the men who watched 
put their own construction. 


224 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


“As gentle as the new-born tiger cub,” quoted Bowlegs 
as he helped himself in right lordly fashion from the 
heaped-up tray offered him by his third wife, who, being 
childless, filled the post of drudge to the entire Bowleg 
family. 

“As placid as the surface of the sands of death,” re¬ 
plied his neighbour as he looked at Zarah and winked at 
Bowlegs. “Allah grant we split not our sides with laugh¬ 
ter when the claws of the tiger cub draw blood.” 

“Or when he slips up to his neck in the sands of her 
displeasure.” 

“What of the white woman? Has aught been prepared 
for her passing to Paradise or Johannam?** 

By spitting with vigour Bowlegs managed to interrupt 
the speaker. 

“My heart is loth to send so fair a maid upon so long a 
journey. All women are cats, longing to sharpen their 
claws upon each other. Let us send her upon the road 
to Hutah, and so trick the gentle Zarah.” 

“Nay. . . .” 

“Ypa 99 

Followed a heated sotto voce discussion, with interludes 
of gambling instigated by the Patriarch, who had grown 
a-weary of his new raiment, in which he found it difficult 
to find the dice and counters. The gambling spread right 
through the hall; the men were quiet, watching Zarah as 
she played every note in the scale of woman’s charm to 
enthral the man at her side, whilst he, thinking of Helen, 
replied mechanically to her questions. 

And Helen, pale, with great shadows round her eyes, 
sat on her couch with her hands clasped in a desperate 
effort to keep herself well under control. For a week 
she had not been allowed outside the front of her building, 
nor had she seen Zarah or caught a sign of Yussuf amongst 
the rocks which towered around the little clearing behind. 

When she had moved to the door or the windows she had 
met the negress, who had pushed her back, and none too 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


225 


gently, whilst making sounds of anger in her throat. Her 
food had become scanty and badly cooked; her books had 
been taken one by one; she had been made to understand 
that to bathe in the river, ride, or visit the dogs, which 
had learned to love her, was forbidden. 

When the shouts of laughter which greeted the dwarf 
with his tangle of monkeys rang through the night air, 
she jumped from the couch and ran out into the clearing 
at the back, wdiereupon, to her everlasting undoing, the 
negress shifted her ungainly person into the direct centre 
of the doorway in the front of the building and lost her¬ 
self in a great disgruntlement, whilst chewing the fragrant 
" kaat .” 

Helen stopped dead in the middle of the clearing and 
pressed her hands upon her mouth. 

Swinging hand over hand, dropping noiselessly from 
rock to rock, came Yussuf down the mountainside, with 
“His Eyes” upon his shoulders. 

Fifteen feet above her they stood, side by side, upon a 
narrow ledge, then, after a few whispered words, leapt 
like panthers and landed like great cats upon the sand of 
the clearing. Noiselessly they crossed to Helen, who 
stood, speechless, against the wall. In the merest whisper 
Yussuf asked her a question and repeated the answer to 
“His Eyes.” 

There was no sound as the youth crept to the door 
and peered in, nor when, with his back to the wall and his 
dagger between his teeth, he stole round the room, his 
eyes fixed on the surly negress lost in her great disgruntle¬ 
ment. Neither did she make other sound than a little sigh 
when, struck by Fate from behind, she fell forward into 
Eternity with her mouth full of kaat. 

“Quick, Excellency!” said Yussuf, when Helen cried 
out at the terrible scene. “There is no time to lose upon 
sympathy. That stroke of the dagger did but remove 
one who was but a little better than a beast and a little 
less evil than she who blinded me. Spill not thy heart’s 


226 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


blood for such, but hasten, in the name of Allah, hasten 
to the white man, who even now is in the hands of the 
she-devil and my brethren, who know not what they do.” 

“White man! What white man?” 

Helen walked close to Yussuf and stared up into his 
sightless face. 

“White man!” she whispered, her face ashen through 
the tumult of her heart. “What white man? In God’s 
name, in the name of Allah, tell me! Is it- —is it-” 

Yussuf caught her and shook her as she reeled up 
against him. 

“Thou art brave, white woman; be not a coward now , 
when thy man waits for thee, surrounded by those who, 
inflamed with forbidden wine, will strike him down for a 
misplaced word. It is this wise. In the few words time 
and Fate allow me-” 

Helen turned to “His Eyes,” who stood beside her, 
smiling and nodding his head, whilst the blind man talked. 
Then she placed her hand in Yussuf’s. 

“. . . rush not in, Excellency,” finished Yussuf as they 
moved towards the door. “Listen to the words of the old 
man with the white hair and venerable beard. Wait until 
the thoughts of my brethren are fixed upon the white man, 
then —then do as Allah the Merciful bids thee, and may 
His blessing rest upon thee and thine throughout all 
time. I shall be within the Hall, likewise ‘Mine Eyes,’ 
when he has well hid the body of yon slave and has finished 
the task I have set him.” 

Yussuf’s sandalled feet made no sound, the noise of 
Helen’s boots upon the rocks was deadened by the shout¬ 
ing from above as they sped like deer up the steep, deserted 
steps to the doorway of the Hall of Judgment. With finger 
upon lips Yussuf slipped in unnoticed, leaving Helen in 
the shadows, staring across the great chamber to the 
dais, where sat Zarah, in all her barbaric loveliness, with 
Ralph Trenchard beside her. 





CHAPTER XVIII 


“Upon every misfortune another misfortune ’* 

—Arabic Proverb. 

A straight, clear path stretched from her to the man she 
loved. 

The end of the room near the door was empty, the men 
having pressed forward towards the dais so as to watch 
the white man’s face when the proposition, which would 
amount to an order, backed by a threat, should be made 
to him. They stood on each side, close together, leaving 
a path the width of the dais, their eyes over-bright and 
their fingers straying towards the dagger—which the 
Arab ever carries—in their cummerbunds. 

Zarah sat leaning slightly forward, her face white under 
the tension of the moment, her jewelled fingers playing 
with the crystal knobs of the ivory chair. She sat in a 
sea of flaming orange, jewel-encrusted satin, the fans 
blowing the ospreys of her head-dress, as they swung the 
silver lamps above her head. 

Ralph Trenchard, sensing that something out of the 
ordinary w r as afoot, sat right forward, alert, watchful, 
his eyes following the movements of the men as they 
walked restlessly to and fro, or stood talking with over¬ 
much gesture. 

He turned once and looked at Zarah, who sat divided 
from him by the glistening folds of her train. He looked 
at her steadily, trying to find the answer to the riddle 
of the hour, and caught his breath when she stretched 
out her hand and laid it on his and whispered, “I love 
you.” He sat staring at her, stunned by the sudden 
realization of his blindness and his crass stupidity, then 
looked down at the Nubian, who, arms folded, stood look¬ 
ing up at him, a world of hate and mockery in his face.* 

227 


228 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


The hate in the man’s eyes, the love in the woman’s 
voice, the sense of pending danger, the unaccountable ex¬ 
pectation in his heart. 

Love, hate? Turmoil, peace? Life, death? 

Which? 

He lifted his head and looked straight across to the 
doorway. It showed black, with a background of purple, 
strewn with stars, and he sighed, unaccountably disap¬ 
pointed, and watched the benign Patriarch move slowly 
forward until he stood in front of the dais. 

As he moved Helen moved forward and hid behind the 
velvet curtain hanging to one side of the door, and made 
another quick movement when the man she loved unknow¬ 
ingly looked straight at her, then stood quite still when 
Yussuf, without turning, raised his hand. 

The Patriach had begun to speak. 

He bowed himself to the ground before Zarah, then 
stood upright, reminding Ralph Trenchard of a picture 
of Elijah he had loved to look at in the family Bible on 
account of the ravens with loaves of bread in their beaks, 
little recking in his baby understanding that the word 
raven stood for a certain village, or tribe of people, in 
the holy one’s environs. 

The Patriarch’s fine voice and sonorous words rang 
through the building, causing the men to press closer 
still, and the Nubian to look up at Zarah. She looked 
down at him with a mocking smile, and then at the vener¬ 
able old man, and lastly at Ralph Trenchard, who sat 
in amazement, looking from one to the other. 

Happily Helen’s sharp cry was drowned in the Patri¬ 
arch’s sonorous words as he offered the Arabian girl’s 
hand in marriage, with her wealth in cash, jewels, horses, 
camel and cattle, to the Englishman; happily everyone 
was too enthralled at the sight of the Englishman’s 
amazed face to look back to the doorway where she stood, 
her eyes flashing in a great anger, her heart beating 
heavily with fear. 

Ralph Trenchard held up his hand. 


229 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

The baying of the dogs from the kennels could be heard 
in the silence that fell, whilst the men tugged at each 
other’s sleeves and surreptitiously made bets upon his 
answer to the proposition. 

He repeated the Patriarch’s proposal word for word, 
then turned to Zarah, speaking slowly, so that all should 
understand. 

“Have I understood correctly? Yon old man, who, he 
says, stands to you in place of a father, proposes that I—- 
I, an Englishman, a foreigner, should marry you, an 
Arabian and a Mohammedan. That I should live here 
with you and help you rule these fine men of yours, who 
could learn nothing from me. That I should give up 
my country, for which I fought, my people whom I love, 
to become one of a nation whose blood is not my blood, 
nor ways my ways. Is that so?” 

Zarah’s hands lay still on the crystal knobs of her 
ivory chair as she answered, a dull crimson slowly flush¬ 
ing her face: 

“Verily,” she replied, holding up her hand to ensura 
silence. “It is as you say. It is our custom in Arabia, 
though of a truth it is not customary for the maid to be 
present at the bargaining.” 

She laughed suddenly, sweetly, and held out her hands, 
whilst her words beat like hammers upon Helen’s brain. 
“For me, he who stands to me as father offers you my 
hand in marriage, wuth my wealth, my people, my horses, 
all I possess, asking naught of you in return. I have the 
blood of Europe in my veins, I have learned the customs 
and the speech of the white races, even of my mother’s 
race. I am not ill-favoured, nor too much wanting in wit. 

I-” Her voice changed as the song of the summer 

breeze might change to the warning of the coming storm. 
“I wait for your answer before my men, who desire 
naught but my happiness and, with mine, their own.” 

At the veiled threat in the last words Ralph Trenchard 
turned and looked at the men, his dominant jaw out- 
thrust, his mouth a line of steel. 



230 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

So this was the meaning of the feasting, the watchful¬ 
ness, the tension, the solicitude. 

The horror of it all. 

Love in the place of friendliness, the love of a despotic 
woman who had never in her life been denied or thwarted; 
a veiled threat as lining to the mantle of hospitality which 
had been thrown about him; a life-long captivity, or even 
death, for his freedom if he stood true to his love for 
Helen. 

Captivity! 

He shuddered involuntarily at the thought of some 
of the prisoners he had seen working under the lash of 
the overseer’s whip. 

Death! 

He smiled. 

A few steps across the no man’s land stretching be¬ 
tween the now and the hereafter and he would see Helen 
waiting for him, her lovely, fair face alight with the love 
of all eternity. 

A great silence fell as he rose, followed by a sound like 
the wind as the men whispered amongst themselves. 

“A fitting mate for the tiger-cat, a fitting sire for the 
whelps, if it were not for his blood.” 

“Yea, verily,” answered Bowlegs. “ ’Tis a rare beauty 
in a man and the stature of a giant.” 

“He and the Lion would be well matched in a fight.” 

Bowlegs would have spat in derision if he had dared. 

“A mouse in the Lion’s maw, brother. I lay thee my 
shirt of silk to thy sandals that the Lion would break 
him in-” 

The whispering stopped when Ralph Trenchard raised 
his hand, whilst the Patriarch, by force of habit, searched 
for the counters in the folds of his new raiment. 

“The honour you do me is very great, very great. 

I cannot find words to thank you. But-” Ralph 

Trenchard looked down at Zarah, who rose slowly, a lovely 
glittering thing full of apprehension and a rising anger. 
She looked him straight in the eyes without a word, and 




ZARAH THE CRUEL 


231 


at the relentlessness which shone in hers he subconsciously 
wondered what kind of death by torture she would mete 
out to him in return for his loyalty to Helen. 

“But-?” 

The word dropped from her lips like the first thunder 
drop heralding the coming storm, and Helen, a great light 
blazing in her eyes, stepped forward and stopped as 
Yussuf held her back by a movement of his hand. 

“But,” continued Ralph Trenchard slowly, very slowly, 
so that every word could be clearly heard throughout the 
hall, “the honour, the great honour I must refuse, be¬ 
cause-” 

“Because-?” 

Under the impulse of a great excitement the men moved 
forward in a body, then stopped. 

There was not a sound to break the terrible silence, not 
a movement except for the jewels which flashed as they 
rose and fell above the Arabian girl’s heart and the fans 
which swung the silver lamps and stirred the black and 
orange osprey of her head-dress. 

She stood like a statue of terrible wrath, outraged in 
her pride before her men. Like a cobra about to strike she 
waited motionless to pay back that insult a hundred-fold. 

“Because-?” she repeated. 

“Because,” Ralph Trenchard said slowly, clearly, “be¬ 
cause I love the memory of the white woman who died 
amongst you, too much to give a thought of love else¬ 
where.” 

Helen’s ringing, joyous cry w r as lost in the men’s shout¬ 
ing and the sharp sound of their daggers as they whipped 
them from the sheath, and her scream of rage was lost 
in their shouts of laughter when Zarah, lifting her hand, 
smote the white man across the mouth. 

Then she ran, oblivious of the roar of amazement, up 
the clear path which stretched between her and her lover. 

“Ra!” she cried as she ran, with arms outstretched. 
“Ra ! I’m here! I’m coming to you, Ra! Come to me!” 

She ran to him as he leapt from the dais; she was 






232 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


in his arms and he had folded her close and kissea her 
before Zarah had time to give an order to the men, who 
stood motionless with astonishment. 

A moment of utter silence, then the storm broke. 

“Separate them!” 

The order, given to the Nubian, cracked like a whip 
as Zarah, white with passion, sank slowly into the ivcry 
chair. 

“Seize the white man!” 

She flung her order to a young Arab whilst the Nubian 
struggled to wrench Ralph Trenchard’s arms from about 
Helen. 

“Drive them in l” 

The young Arab turned the dagger he held in each 
hand and drove the blunt handle hard down on to the ribs 
just above Ralph Trenchard’s waist, and jerked him 
roughly back when his arms slackened under the shock and 
agonizing pain. 

There was a moment’s breathless silence. 

Helen stood perfectly still, her elbows held from behind 
by Al-Asad, her face, radiant with love, turned towards 
Ralph Trenchard, who sickened at the sight of the 
Nubian’s glistening skin so near the girl he adored. He 
knew that they were in a desperate plight, the tightest 
corner any two could have got into, but he was not giv¬ 
ing the Arabian the satisfaction of seeing a sign of his 
dismay in his face, and he worshipped Helen for her 
outward calm, though his whole being revolted at the 
Nubian’s close proximity to her. 

He knew he had only to make a certain movement to 
fling off the man who held his elbows from behind, but 
before he made it he wanted to find a way to make the 
half-caste loosen his hold of Helen. 

And the way came to him as he looked at Al-Asad, who 
stood staring down at Helen’s golden hair with an 
indescribable look on his face. 

“You, Al-Asad,” he said slowly, pronouncing each word 
so that it sounded clearly in the hall, “you nigger, let 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 233 

go of the white woman. In our country we do not allow 
the black-” 

He rid himself with a lightning movement from the 
hands which held him and sprang and caught the Nubian, 
who, hurling Helen back against the dais, leapt at the 
man who had so direly insulted him. 

There came one tremendous yell as the men rushed to 
form a ring, then a very babel of voices as they laid 
their last qamis and their last piastre upon the outcome 
of the struggle between the two men who stood locked in 
a mighty grip. 

“My shirt of silk to thy sandals,” yelled Bowlegs, 
“that the foreigner is crushed like a mouse in the Lion’s 
maw.” 

“Taken, O thou little one with legs like the full moon,” 
yelled his neighbour, who had learnt a thing or two in the 
fine art of wrestling when he had fought so magnificently 
for the whites. “The white man will use our brother as 
a cloth with which to wipe the marks of thy misshapen 
feet from the ground. Bulk counts not against knowl¬ 
edge.” 

Bowlegs spat as he glanced at Ralph Trenchard, who, 
trained to a hair, stood well over six feet, yet looked like 
a stripling beside the gigantic Nubian, who overtopped 
him by inches. 

The men’s attention was diverted for one moment 
when Helen ran up the steps of the dais, and they held 
their breath in sheer delight when the Arabian rose from 
her chair to confront her. 

The two girls were about the same height, both of 
an amazing beauty, and they both loved the same man, 
who was likely to have his neck broken within the next 
few minutes. 

What more could they desire as an evening’s entertain¬ 
ment ? 

“Will you take a bet, Zarah?” 

The lamps seemed likely to spill their oil as they swung 
to the men’s shouting. 



234 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


“Take it! Take it!” they yelled. “Take it, Zarah 
the Beautiful. Let it not be said that an infidel could 
show thee a path.” 

“The stakes ?” 

“Ralph Trenchard’s life against my locket, which 
hangs around your neck!” 

“They are both mine!” 

“The locket is mine , his life is God's, in your keeping 
for a little while.” 

“You, Helen R-r-aynor, you sign his death warrant? 
He cannot win against my slave!” 

“Will you take the bet?” 

The Arabian unfastened the chain and, laughing, flung 
the locket at Helen’s feet as the two men moved. 

The Nubian put forth all the strength of his mighty 
muscle. Ralph Trenchard, one of the finest exponents of 
jiu-jitsu to be found anywhere, took advantage of the 
movement to slip his hand an inch or two, and to move 
his foot an inch or so. For a second he stood quite still, 
then, as the Nubian moved, with a movement too quick 
and too fine to be described, lifted the gigantic man and 
flung him so that he struck his head against the dais and 
lay still at his mistress’s feet. 

In the uproar which followed Helen was down the steps 
like a bird, and, laughing happily in her complete misun¬ 
derstanding of the Oriental mind, was in her lover’s arms. 

“His life!” she cried, looking over her shoulder towards 
Zarah. “His life! I’ve won! I’ve won!” then flung her 
arms round him and held him close at sight of the fury 
in the Arabian’s face, whilst the men pressed upon them, 
their hands outstretched, waiting for the order which 
they knew must come. 

“Separate them!” 

Helen’s hair came down about her like a mantle as 
hands, only too willing, dragged her away from the man 
she loved, and Ralph’s silk shirt ripped to the waist as he 
fought desperately for her until overpowered by numbers. 

Zarah stood half-way down the steps, looking like some 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


235 


great bird with her train spread out behind her, the 
ospreys blowing this way and that above her death- 
white face with its half-shut tawny eyes and crimson 
mouth. She stood looking from the one to the other 
evilly as she planned a torture for the two which might, 
in some little way, ease the torture of her own heart. 

She had given her word to spare the white man’s life, 
and as it had been given before some hundred witnesses, 
her word she had to keep, but she would make of that 
life such a hell that the white girl would wish, before she 
had finished with both of them, that death had overtaken 
her and her lover in the battle. 

In the intense excitement of the moment no notice was 
taken of Yussuf as he crept quietly through the door¬ 
way from behind the curtain where he had been sitting, 
nor of the clamour from the kennels, which a few moments 
later rent the peace of the night. 

“Bring them here, both of them, to my feet. Hold 
them apart! Thou dog! Who told thee to strike the 
white man?” Zarah pointed at a pock-marked youth 
who had pushed Ralph Trenchard forward by the shoul¬ 
der in an exuberance engendered by the uproar so dear to 
the Arab’s heart. “ ’Tis well for thee that it is a day of 
festival, else would ten strokes of the whip have been paid 
thee for thy presumption.” 

The youth shrank back behind a pillar, whilst Zarah 
looked from one to another of the men, dominating them 
all by her unconquerable will and her magnetic beauty. 

She had but to smile and to speak to them as her 
beloved children and the prisoners would be free to go 
where they pleased; to say one word for the hall to be 
emptied; to raise her hand for the prisoners to die on 
the spot. 

She was supreme in her command, superb in her beauty, 
but as she looked at the English girl she knew she was 
beaten. 

She could see the love in Ralph Trenchard’s eyes as 
he looked across at Helen, who stood smiling, dishevelled, 


236 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


with her golden hair in a cloud around her over-thin, 
death-white face; and she knew that in his love for 
Helen, the love she herself craved for and had failed to 
inspire, he would fight to the death to save her from 
harm. 

Death! 

Even as the word flashed into her mind, the youth 
whom Al-Asad had whirled like a club and shaken like 
a sack of durra for mimicking his mistress sprang 
forward. 

In the Arab’s supreme callousness towards his brother’s 
feelings he used the Nubian’s limp body as the first step 
as he ran up the steps of the dais and knelt at Zarah’s 
feet. 

“Her death, mistress!” he shouted, his eyes blazing 
at the thought of the white girl’s insult towards his women¬ 
folk. “Behold, she mocks thee and the women who tend 
and serve her. She mocks them this wise.” 

He sprang back, landing, with the Arab’s supreme cal¬ 
lousness towards his brother’s feelings, full upon the 
Nubian’s back, so that, the last ounce of breath being 
expelled forcibly from his lungs, he lay limper than ever. 
Followed a mimicry of Helen’s supposed mimicry of Nam- 
lah the busy and the surly negress, until the men shouted 
with laughter and yelled with appreciation, whilst Zarah 
looked down without a smile and Helen looked on in 
amazement. 

She understood at last, and tried in her indignation to 
free herself, and failing, shouted her denial of the untruth. 

“It is a lie! It is a lie! I could not, would not-” 

As the youth spat in her direction, and the men, their 
pride once more ablaze at the thought of the insult offered 
their own women, cursed and yelled, Ralph Trenchard, 
with an effort beyond all telling, broke from his captors 
and sprang straight at the youth who had spat. 

“You swine! You filthy swine!” he cried, and with a 
fist like a flail caught the spitter full on the point, smash¬ 
ing his jaw, whereupon the men yelled “ Wah! Wall!” and 



ZARAH THE CRUEL 


237 


at a sign from their mistress, shouting with joy, flung 
themselves upon Ralph Trenchard and held him fast. 

“Pass not the sentence of death upon him this night, 
mistress,” suddenly cried Bowlegs, waddling forward. 
“He has grievously insulted thee, as has the white woman, 
but let him live for a space and under the eyes of Al-Asad 
teach us his cunning tricks, for, behold! if ’twere but a 
question of muscle even could I pinch his life out ’twixt 
thumb and finger. After we have learned the tricks, 
then-” 

A shout of appreciation followed hot upon his words 
of wisdom. Helen in despair fought to free herself so as 
to protect her lover, whereupon Zarah looked slowly in 
her direction. 

“And the woman?” 

“Kill her! Sink her in the sands of death! Give her 
to the dogs! Drive her out into the Empty Desert!” 

Zarah shook her head at the suggestions shouted by 
men who are taught in their religion that woman is 
devoid of soul, and therefore to be looked upon either as 
a plaything or a drudge, or the potential bearer of sons, 
and, in any case, far below the level of the horse at her 
very best. 

“Death is but a closing of the eyes in sleep.” Zarah 
translated the line she had learned at school. “And I 
would keep her wide-eyed in life, wmrking as work the 
women she has mocked.” She caught the horror in Ralph 
Trenchard’s eyes as he looked from her to Helen, who 
stood mute, her heart aglow at the thought of her lover’s 
safety for the moment. Lost to all thought of self, she 
but half understood Zarah’s words, and looked question- 
ingly from the men to her and back. 

“Yea! Ralph Tr-r-enchar-r-d!” said Zarah slowly, 
pouring the balm of revenge into her smarting wounds. 
“To work as my servant, to wait upon me, to serve me, 
even as thou shalt work under the ruling of*that fool, 
who would even now be dead if it were not for the thickness 
of his skull.” She held up her hand as the men shouted. 



238 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


“Has the white man aught to say, the man who changes 
his coat to the wind? The white woman at dawn, the 
Arabian at noon, the white woman at dusk, and Allah 
knows which in the watches of the night!” 

“You liar! You despicable coward! There isn’t a 
word of truth in what you say, you liar!” 

Helen’s words, forcible, if somewhat lacking in diplo¬ 
macy considering her position, rang through the room, 
and Yussuf, standing hidden just outside the door, raised 
the electric torch he held as a sign to “His Eyes” stand¬ 
ing outside the kennels deserted by the grooms, who, 
against orders, had crept to the feast en bloc , instead of 
in shifts. Yussuf, who knew his brethren backward and 
looked upon them as children, had planned the death of 
the Arabian and the escape of the whites as a grand 
finale to the day’s festivities. 

For the last half-hour the dogs, headed by Radi the 
bitch, had been driven to the point of madness by “His 
Eyes,” who had drawn one of Zarah’s sandals across 
the bars of the kennels, inciting them to a very lust to 
kill. 

Yussuf had planned everything, but had forgotten 
to take into consideration the extraordinary trait in the 
character of the white races which urges them to give 
their life for their brother at the slightest provocation. 
He raised his hand to flash the signal, then dropped it to 
listen to Ralph Trenchard speaking. 

“There is a proverb in England,” he was saying slowly, 
so that everyone should understand, “which says, ‘One 
man can take a horse to the water, but ten cannot make 
him drink.’ You will never make the girl, who will one 
day be my wife, wait upon you as a servant, neither will 
you make me work under your half-caste lover.” 

Which words were also lacking in diplomacy, taking 
everything into consideration. 

A great silence fell. The men thought that Zarah 
had been rather badly cornered; she waited out of sheer 
dramatic instinct. Then she laughed, laughed until the 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 239 

hall was full of the sweet sound, as she turned and sank 
into her chair. 

She had the prisoners in the hollow of her hand, and 
not one whit of their punishment would she spare them. 

She put her exquisite, golden-sandalled foot upon the 
ivory footstool, and looked at Helen. 

“Loosen the white woman!” 

She spoke curtly, and the men holding Helen sprang 
back. 

“I would remove my sandals, Helen R-r-aynor-r! Come 
and loosen them!” 

Helen smiled and shook her head. Torture would not 
force her to save her life by humiliating the white races. 

“You will not? Remember you are a prisoner, my 
prisoner, and that the power of life and death and punish¬ 
ment is in my hands!” Zarah leant right forward and 
looked into the steady blue e3^es, whilst the men, knowing 
their mistress’s cunning, pressed forward. “You will not, 
you say?” 

“No ! I will not!” 

Zarah sat up, her hand pointing at Ralph Trenchard, 
her eyes half closed in the strength of her terrible cruelty. 

“I will make you, and I will make him in like manner 
if he refuses to obey.” She paused for a moment, and 
then spoke sharply. “Take the white man out, and whip 
him till he drops. Stop!” 

She had won. 

Yet as she leant back slowly she felt no triumph as 
she w r atched Helen swing round to the man who fought 
to get free. 

Helen laughed, laughed good humouredly, splendidly, 
with all the pluck of her race, as she spoke to the man she 
was fighting for. 

“Why should I not unfasten the very pretty sandal, 
Ra? Why should you be made to suffer, if my very capable 
fingers can undo the gold laces of my lady’s footwear? 
Don’t get angry, Ra, it’s a great waste of energy; besides, 
you know I always do exactly as I please.” 


240 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

Yussuf listened to the men’s exclamations and laughter, 
to the sound of Helen’s feet mounting the steps, then 
flashed his torch three times. 

* * * * * 

“The world is a mirror; show thyself in it, and it will 
reflect thy image /'— Arabic Proverb. 

Helen looked over her shoulder at her lover and smiled 
without a trace of bitterness, then turned and looked 
straight into the Arabian’s eyes. 

For a long moment the two girls looked at each other, 
until, unable to bear the contempt in the steady blue 
eyes, the Arabian lowered hers, and pointed to her sandal, 
then lifted her head sharply as Helen knelt. 

Pushing Helen to one side, Zarah sprang to her feet 
and walked quickly to the top of the steps and stood 
staring at the doorway, through which could be seen 
the star-strewn sky and through which could be heard 
the baying of dogs in full cry. 

Her face was white as death, her eyes wide in fear; 
her hands pressed down upon her heart as she backed 
away from the savage sound, until she stood upon her 
train, which swept around her like a shell. 

The men stood facing the doorway, whispering to each 
other. They had hunted too often with the dogs; they 
knew every sound of their voices too well not to know that 
they were hard on the scent of whatever they were so 
strangely hunting at this hour of the night, when they 
were never allowed to be at large. 

Bowlegs, who loved the dogs almost as much as he 
loved his horses, under a strange excitement which had 
fallen upon him as well as on the other men, spoke to 
Helen, whom he knew to be so beloved of the dogs. 

“They cross the plateau in a pack, hot on the trail, 
ah! they have lost. Canst hear Radi the bitch, the finest 
in the kennels? They near the water’s edge! Hearken 
to the echo thrown by the rock above the cavern! They 
have found. Ah! hunt they the devil? Or is’t a pack of 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


241 


dji/nns hunting the dead from the quicksands? Tell- 99 

A man came running from the doorway, his eyes full 
of fear, his dagger in his hand. He ran up to the foot of 
the dais and stood half turned towards the door, to which 
he pointed frantically, and shouted up to Helen. 

“They come, they come, the greyhounds and the dogs 
of Billi. They mount the steps; their eyes shine in the 

dark; they are mad with rage; death hunts with them-” 

He turned and looked at Zarah, who stood like a pillar 
of stone, wrapped in her train. 

She did not seem to count in this moment of great 
danger. 

Helen, knowing the dogs’ inexplicable hatred of their 
mistress, turned and looked at her, the contempt in her 
eyes deepening to scorn as she saw the frozen look of 
fear in the Arabian’s eyes. 

“The dogs have got out,” she said sharply. “Look! 
your men are running before them. Look! Wake up 
and do something. Order the doors to be shut or they’ll 
be in. Quick, Zarah!” 

The Arabian took no notice. Lost in one of the visions 
which swept down upon her at times, she was looking into 
the future. 

She stood stark with terror, her eyes wide and glassy, 
her crimson lips drawn back from her teeth, which chat¬ 
tered like gourds rattled by the wind. She shook from 
head to foot, and put out her hand and tried to speak as 
the dogs suddenly gave tongue. 

She clutched at her throat and pointed to the door, 
and Helen, who did not understand, turned away from 
the picture of abject fear and held out her arms to her 
lover, who stood a prisoner in the hands of men who 
showed great signs of uneasiness as they looked at their 
mistress and then at the door. 

Then Helen stamped her foot and shouted, so that the 
men who stood near the door turned towards her, then 
impeded each other in their haste as they tried to obey 
her. 




242 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


“Shut the door!” she cried. “Keep them out! Quick! 
they’re almost at the top! Shut it! You’re too-” 

Her words were lost in a piercing scream from Zarah 
as she ran back and back until she reached the wall. She 
flung her arms out and fought, fought the imaginary 
dogs which in her strange vision she saw leaping upon her. 
She fought desperately, a wonderful picture against the 
glittering Byzantine wall, fought nothing but her imagina¬ 
tion or the shadows thrown by Fate. Then she screamed 
and screamed and, covering herself in her train, crouched 
down, as the whole pack of greyhounds and the hunting 
dogs of Billi tore through the doorway. 

“Ra!” cried Helen. “Ra! come to me! They’re after 
her. She’ll be torn to pieces before our eyes, Ra!” 

The men holding Ralph Trenchard backed before the 
onslaught of the great dogs; he seized the opportunity 
and leaped for the steps, gaining the top just in time. 

“My God!” he cried, as he watched the beautiful 
creatures tear across the floor. “If they leap to the 
top, sweetheart, we’re done; they’re too mad to recognize 
us.” He put his arm round her and kissed her on the 
mouth. “Darling! we shall win through, never you fear; 
keep a brave heart, beloved, and remember that I love 
you.” 

Helen whispered as she put her hand in his: “And 
remember that I love you and that Yussuf is our friend.” 

They had no time for more, the dogs were on them. 
Ralph Trenchard caught the splendid bitch and flung 
her back as she reached the top of the steps. He caught 
her again and yet again as she returned to the charge, 
meeting her teeth in the 3 r ounger dogs who tried to outdo 
her or to pass her on the steps, whilst the dogs of Billi 
leapt and leapt and leapt again to reach the top of the 
dais, where crouched the woman they hated so deeply in 
their canine hearts. 

Yussuf’s “Eyes” had over-reached himself in letting out 
the entire pack. 



243 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

They were jammed too close together to get up the 
steps or for any single one to be able to get the necessary 
run which might have allowed the strongest to leap to the 
top. They baulked each other; they fought each other; 
they rushed the dais in a wedge and fell back and fought 
each other where they fell, until the place seemed a mass 
of maddened dogs. 

The scent of the woman they hated was strong in their 
fine noses; she was there just above their heads, just out 
of reach of their mighty, snapping jaws. They rushed 
the steps when the bitch fell back, exhausted, and fought 
the man who held them at the top. He knelt upon the top 
step and caught them by the neck and threw them head¬ 
long back and down amongst those who rushed behind; 
whilst those far back in the middle of the hall flung them¬ 
selves upon those in front, which turned and fought them, 
then turned again and strove to reach the steps. 

Helen knelt beside her lover ready to help, and the men 
stood far back against the wall making bets upon the out¬ 
come of it all, watching the stupendous picture, full of 
admiration for the white people, who had tackled the 
situation without hesitation, whilst the grooms flung them¬ 
selves into the seething mass of dogs and fought to dom¬ 
inate them. 

And the dogs far back in the hall, who fought to get 
forward, flung themselves on the men against the wall and 
on the grooms, then, losing the woman’s scent in the male 
garments, sat back and howled and barked and fought 
each other, until the place was like a corner of hell let 
loose. 

Radi the bitch, in one last effort of revenge, made a 
sudden rush and making a spring-board of the Nubian’s 
body, with a wonderful leap, which brought shouts of 
approval from the men, landed on the top of the dais 
at Helen’s side. 

With the Arabian’s scent strong in her pointed nose, 
she rushed to where she crouched and turned and ripped 


244 ZARAH THE CRUEL 

Helen’s coat as the girl flung herself sideways and caught 
her by the neck, calling to her, hanging on to her with 
both hands. The bitch recognized the voice she had 
learned to obey in love, and turned suddenly and thrust 
her muzzle into Helen’s neck and hands, just as the head 
groom shouted from the body of the hall. 

“Whistle, Excellency,” he shouted. “The madness is 
past. They obey. Whistle to them, then with thy hand 
upon the bitch’s neck, I beseech thee to lead the way to the 
kennels.” 

“Yea! Excellency!” yelled the different men from the 
kennels and the stables, as they stood holding on to a 
struggling dog with each hand. “They will follow thy 
whistle, loving thee.” 

Helen laughed as she led Radi to the top step, looking 
like “Diana of the Uplands” in a strange setting as the 
splendid greyhound strained to get down to her com¬ 
panions. 

She gave a long, low whistle, upon which every dog 
fought as frenziedly to get to her in love as they had 
fought to get to the Arabian in hate. 

“Hold them!” she cried. “I will whistle them back 
to the kennels.” 

Which words were heard and taken up by a child stand¬ 
ing outside in the shadows, and passed on to the women, 
who, with a hate in their hearts even greater than that of 
the dogs for the Arabian, had crept from their quarters 
and half-way up the steps to the Hall of Judgment. 

The hate of these docile creatures for the white girl, 
planted and fostered by the men who had been so led 
astray by Al-Asad, was most truly to be feared a hundred 
times more than the instinctive hate of the dogs for the 
Arabian. They had done their best to please this 
foreigner, cooking for her, mending her clothes, fetching 
and carrying for her and waiting upon her; when their 
men had come back raving of her beauty and her horse¬ 
manship, the meek, downtrodden souls, who had lost 
their looks and their figures through hard work and over- 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


245 


much child-bearing, had said no word, but when they had 
heard the tales of the beautiful white girl’s mimicry of 
their efforts to please her, then they had vowed to 
themselves to be revenged upon her and at the first 
opportunity. 

The news of the dogs’ escape had reached them. The 
opportunity had arrived, and perhaps a double oppor¬ 
tunity for revenge, for why should the dogs not pull both 
the women down so that they should be quit of their 
dreaded mistress and the foreigner. 

When the child passed on Helen’s words they crept 
swiftly down the steps and up to the kennels, and hid 
themselves amongst the rocks to wait just a little longer. 

“No! don’t come with me, beloved,” Helen said, as she 
stood on the top of the dais steps pressed close to 
her lover’s side, with the dogs leaping and barking at 
her feet. “A love such as ours must come right in the 
end, and I don’t believe she meant what she said.” 

In which she was mistaken, as she was to learn. 

“Then, until we meet again, dear heart! I don’t like 
you doing this, somehow.” 

“She wouldn’t let us be together, Ra! It’s wiser not 
to make her really angry!” 

He held her close, and kissed her, and watched her 
run down the steps into the middle of the dogs, which 
nearly knocked her down in their exuberance; and watched 
her laughing, calling, whistling, as she ran down the hall, 
followed by them all, whilst the men, who were but children 
in their wrath and very good-tempered children when left 
alone, shouted their admiration. 

She turned at the door, beautiful, radiant, and held out 
her arms. 

“Ra!” she called. “Ra ! beloved!” and disappeared into 
the night, the rocks echoing the barking of the dogs. 

The men rushed to the door and out on to the broad 
ledge to watch the wonderful picture. 

Down the steps and over the plateau and up the other 
side to the kennels she fled like Diana, preceded by the 


246 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


dogs and followed by the kennel grooms, who called the 
blessings of Allah upon her as they ran. 

Her voice calling to the dogs came faintly on the soft 
night breeze; they heard her whistle; there fell a silence. 
Then were heard the shrill cries of many hate-filled women. 

The clamour grew louder and louder and ended in pro¬ 
longed, insufferable peals of laughter. 

Silence. 

Sick with horror, Ralph Trenchard took a step down 
and stopped. 

Al-Asad sat on the bottom step, looking up. 

His handsome face was drawn in pain, his lips pulled 
back from his splendid teeth. He sat crouched, still, 
looking up out of eyes filled with hate. 

Ralph Trenchard swung round to the woman. She 
stood against the wall, a slender, silent figure, love and 
hate shining from her half-closed eyes. 

He did not hesitate, he leapt clear of the dais to save 
the girl he loved from what the insufferable peals of laugh¬ 
ter, which echoed in his ears, portended. 

He had got half-way down the hall, when, upon a sign 
from the Arabian woman, hands caught him and held 
him, whilst a golden sound of laughter came from Zarah 
as she stood, a thing of love and hate, against the glit¬ 
tering Byzantine wall. 

* * * * & 

“Fear not, my children,” whispered Yussuf to “His 
Eyes” and Namlah the Busy some time later as they 
talked over the failure of their plans within the last few 
hours. “Even as the pounding of many grains of wheat 
goes to the making of bread, so is life learnt in many 
lessons. Dawn breaketh. To revenge the loss of thy 
son, my daughter, thy speech, my son, and mine eyes, 
we will bring about the downfall of the accursed woman. 
The proverb says ‘Three persons if they unite against a 
town will ruin it.* ” 


CHAPTER XIX 


“Before the clouds appeared the rain came upon me.” 

—Arabic Proverb. 

Two months had passed in which Zarah had absolutely- 
failed to break her prisoners’ indomitable spirit; two 
months in which her passion for the white man and her 
hate for the white girl had grown deeper and fiercer. 

With the density of some women, she clung with an 
extraordinary and ridiculous tenacity to the belief that, 
if she only threatened or cajoled enough and held her rival 
up plainly enough to ridicule or contempt, she would ulti¬ 
mately win Ralph Trenchard’s love. 

Also did fear urge her to force or cajole him into 
becoming her husband. 

She knew her own men were blown like cotton threads 
before every passing gust of their facile emotions, and 
that their suddenly aroused hatred of Ralph Trenchard 
had given place to genuine admiration; by that she had 
come to realize she had no real hold over them and that, 
where they had obeyed her father, the Sheikh, through 
genuine love, they merely obeyed her because it pleased 
them so to do. 

She was just their nominal head. She pleased their 
sense of beauty, and they almost worshipped her for her 
courage in raids, but they were too well fed, too sure of 
an unfailing supply of the necessities of life, too secure 
against intrusion and interference to wish to relieve her 
of the reins of government with its attendant burdens. 

If they had formed one of the itinerant groups of 
Bedouins which have to literally fight for their existence 

247 ' 


248 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


as they flee across the desert, she knew they would not 
have tolerated her for a day. 

True, they made no effort to run counter to her orders 
and to ameliorate the white man’s position. They con¬ 
sidered the rough hut he lived in on the far side of the 
plateau, and the rough food sent him, quite good enough 
for any infidel; but they greeted him with friendly shouts 
when he arrived to teach them his tricks of cunning, and 
did their best to beat him at his own game. 

If it had not been for his overwhelming anxiety for the 
future and for Helen, whom he knew, by hearsay, to be a 
very slave to the tyrannical Arabian, Ralph Trenchard 
would not have complained of his life or his treatment. 
True, he hated the half-caste, who did his best to humili¬ 
ate him in the eyes of the men and, in a moment of forget¬ 
fulness in the early days, had forcibly rebelled against 
his constant espionage and irritating presence. He 
had been instantly cured of the spirit of rebellion by the 
sight which, with a mocking laugh, the Nubian had pointed 
out to him, of Helen, kneeling by the river surrounded 
by jeering women, as she washed the Arabian’s linen. 

“And worse will happen, thou infidel, if thou dar’st 
disobey my mistress’s commands. Mohammed the Prophet 
of Allah decreed in his understanding that unto the faith¬ 
ful should be four wives given, neither did he in his wis¬ 
dom say aught against an infidel wife being of the four. 
Nay! in thine eyes I see the lust to kill. The life of the 
white woman pays forfeit for my life; thy life if the white 
woman essays to shorten the days of Zarah the Beautiful.” 

For fear of something worse than death befalling the 
beautiful, splendid girl he loved, he dared do nothing. 
For every word, for every act of rebellion on his part, 
some task even more menial than those she daily per¬ 
formed would be forced upon her; for any attempt he 
might make upon the Nubian’s life, to assuage his own 
outraged feelings, her life would be taken. 

And there seemed no possible way out. 


249 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

Not only did the Nubian dog his footsteps, but Yussuf, 
upon whom he had counted in his heart of hearts, had 
failed him, and without Iris help nothing could be done, 
noncommunication with Helen effected, no plans for escape 
made. 

He saw Yussuf every day seated amongst the men 
gathered to learn the arts of wrestling and jiu-jitsu, and 
of all the little crowd he seemed to be the only one who 
still cherished his hatred for the infidel. He spat with 
vigour when the white man passed, and at other times 
shouted various abusive or ribald remarks, whilst urging 
his brethren to down the unbeliever in the tests of strength 
and cunning, for the glory of Allah the one and only 
God. 

His days were most humiliatingly mapped out for him 
by the Nubian. 

There seemed to be no satisfying the men’s craving 
to master the rudiments of wrestling. 

From two hours after sunrise until the first moment of 
the great noonday heat they milled and boxed, with 
intervals of single-stick and jiu-jitsu, in which they 
invariably forgot instructions, lost their self-control and 
temper, and almost broke each other’s legs, arms, heads 
or backs. 

The afternoons were passed in the heavy, unrefreshing 
sleep induced by great heat; from the moment the sun 
slipped down behind the topmost mountain peaks, throw¬ 
ing deep shadows across the plateau, they were at it again 
until the hour of the one big meal of the day, which takes 
place about two hours after sunset. 

The best part of the night they passed in gambling, 
story telling, singing, or tearing over the desert on horse¬ 
back, Ralph Trenchard accompanying them, invariably 
shadowed by the Nubian. 

To his intense relief, Zarah left him entirely alone for 
the first month. Fully aware that he was surrounded by 
spies, he gave no sign of the rage which swept him each 


250 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


time he caught sight of Helen following the Arabian, 
fanning her or holding an umbrella over her; or descend¬ 
ing the steps to the river with a great earthenware vessel 
on her shoulder, which she would fill for the tyrant’s 
bath and carry up the steep steps to her dwelling. 

Zarah had passed the month in trying to break Helen’s 
splendid spirit, ignorant of the strength which real love 
gives to those who, either through physical weakness or 
untoward circumstances, are at the mercy of those moral 
cowards who take advantage of their distress or defence¬ 
lessness. Cowards who, amongst the educated and the 
ignorant, the clergy, the laity, in the highest profession 
or in trade, place themselves morally on the level of the 
man who kicks his dog or hits his opponent when he is 
down. 

She made no impression on the English girl. 

Strong in her love, certain that her prayers for help 
would be answered, she endured all things. 

She waited on the Arabian hand and foot, climbed the 
ladder to the golden cage, wherein Zarah lay during the 
siesta , with coffee, sherbet, or whatever she desired, and 
descended and climbed again with ever the sweetest smile 
in her steady, blue eyes. She brushed and combed the 
red curls until her arms ached; carried and fetched and 
read aloud and looked after the birds; fanned the woman, 
fetched water from the river for her bath, washed the 
silken garments, and waited upon her at meals, without a 
murmur on her lips or a shadow in her eyes. 

She spoke to no one, but through the gossiping of the 
women learned that the body of the surly negress had 
not been discovered, and that Zarah, owing to a certain 
spirit of insubordination that had lately swept through 
the camp, had not dared to punish the grooms of the 
kennels for their gross carelessness. 

She was continually surrounded by the women, who, 
ignorant of the lies told them, jeered at and laughed at 
her and did everything in their power to make her tasks 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 251 

even yet more distasteful. When away from Zarah her 
every movement was spied upon and reported. 

She slept in a hut in which tools had been stored during 
the alterations to the building, rough and infinitely uncom¬ 
fortable, but a very haven of refuge at the end of the 
day when she returned, to fling herself on her knees and 
pray for strength and patience. 

If only she had known it, spies watched her at her 
prayers, noting the look of peace w’hich followed quickly 
upon them, and the content with which she stretched her¬ 
self upon the bed composed of rugs flung upon the sand; 
watched her asleep and at her toilette, and ran to make 
report on all things, especially upon the delight she 
seemed to take in combing her masses of beautiful hair 
and in her bath in the river long before the dawn. 

And when a rough hand shook Helen out of her sleep 
and ordered her to Zarah’s presence, it seemed that God 
had turned a deaf ear to her prayers and that fear must, 
after all, dominate her splendid courage. 

It was long after midnight when, with a heavily beating 
heart, she entered the luxurious room. 

Two Abyssinian women, nude save for a short petti¬ 
coat which stopped above the knees, stood behind the 
divan upon which Zarah lay smoking a naghileh. She lay 
and looked at Helen without a word, hating her for the 
ethereal look, which heightened her beauty and had come 
to her in her days of toil and privation. 

“I am told,” she said after a while in Arabic, “that 
the hut you sleep in is not clean, that your habits are 
not the cleanly habits of the Mohammedan, that your 
hair has not escaped contamination from the disorder 
in your hut; therefore-” 

When Helen interrupted her quickly, she looked back 
at the tittering black women and laughed. 

“How can you say such a thing! I am perfectly 
clean, my clothes are in holes through being washed on 
the stones, my hair ...” To her own undoing and 



252 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


yet, if she had but known it, as an answer to her prayers 
for help, she undid the great golden plaits and shook the 
rippling mass out over her shoulders, holding long strands 
at arm’s length until even the negresses exclaimed at the 
glory of its sheen. “My hair is combed and brushed every 
day and washed once a week; it is perfectly clean!” 

Zarah laughed as she puffed at her hubble-bubble, 
inhaling the fumes of the tobacco of Oman, which is cal¬ 
culated to absolutely stun the uninitiated in its gun¬ 
powder strength. 

“Anyway, I do not like these tales of uncleanliness to 
be spread amongst my women, Helen R-r-aynor-r,” she 
said curtly at last. “I therefore have decided to keep 
you beneath my eyes. You will sleep in my room, on a 
mat, you will bathe under the supervision of this slave 
here, who will now cut your hair off so that you are 
clean.” 

“I’ll kill her if she touches me!” Helen cried sharply, 
and, gathering the glory of her hair round about her, 
ran to a table upon which lay an ornamented but most 
workmanlike dagger. She loved her glorious, naturally 
curling hair, looking upon it, with her beautiful teeth, 
as the greatest asset with which nature had endowed her. 
Her lover loved it, and had often told her that she had 
ensnared his heart in its golden mesh. Forgetting her 
impossible position as prisoner and the utter futility of 
any effort at resistance, determined to fight for the 
glorious mantle which covered her to her knees, she picked 
up the dagger as the two gigantic women approached her. 

“I’ll kill the first one of you who touches me!” 

Zarah laughed and raised her hand. 

“Go and find Al-Asad and bid him bind the white man 
and bring him here. Stop!” 

Helen had thrown out her hands in surrender. 

Even her hair would ehe willingly sacrifice in her 
great love, everything she would sacrifice except her hon¬ 
our, and that she knew was safe in a place abounding 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 253 

with deep precipices and paths where the foothold was 
precarious. 

Save for her tightly locked hands, she made no sign 
when the beautiful mass lay about her feet; in fact, with 
an almost superhuman effort of courage, she refrained 
from touching her shorn head, and leant down instead and 
picked up a handful of hair, which looked like a great 
skein of golden silk. 

“It’s a pity to waste it, Zarah,” she said gently. “Why 
not stuff* a pillow with it?” 

The Arabian bit hard on the amber mouthpiece of the 
nagliileli. With her short hair curling round her face, 
Helen looked like an exquisite girl of fifteen, defenceless, 
helpless, and calculated to inspire pity in the heart of 
almost any man. 

“Call Namlah!” She lashed the Abyssinian across the 
thigh w r hen she had to repeat the order. “Art deaf or 
bereft of the use of thy limbs, thou fool!” she screamed, 
seizing the dagger from her belt and throwing it after the 
rapidly retreating negress, missing her shoulder by an 
inch as she emulated the speed of the ostrich through the 
doorway. 

Namlah, upon whom Helen had counted in her heart 
of hearts, had failed her, and without her help nothing 
could be done, no communication with Ralph effected, no 
plans for escape made. 

Of all the crowd of women who jeered and laughed at 
her she seemed to be the one who cherished the greatest 
hatred for her. She spat with vigour when the white girl 
passed, and at other times shouted various abusive and 
ribald remarks, urging the women to see that the unbe¬ 
liever performed her menial tasks thoroughly, so as to 
enhance the glory of Allah the one and only God. 

She ran in and prostrated herself before her dread 
mistress, then pulled the masses of hair roughly from 
under Helen’s feet and tossed it this w r ay and that as 
though it w r ere the hair of goat or camel. 


254 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


“A kerchief for thy head, 0 great mistress, could I 
weave, or a plaited girdle set with pearls, though ’twere 
wellnigh sacrilege for the middle of the believer to be 
bound by the hair of the infidel. Behold the infidel looks 
even like the skull of one dead, with her face like unbaked 
bread and her head like unto the wing of the ostrich 
plucked of its feathers.” 

With instructions to make what she could of the silky 
burden which filled both her arms, she spat or, rather, 
for fear of her mistress’s humour, made the sound of 
vigorous spitting in Helen’s direction, and vanished 
through the doorway. 

Helen lay on the floor that night, her beautiful shorn 
head resting on her arm, and poured out her heart in 
gratitude that Zarah had not seen fit to shave it com¬ 
pletely. 


* # # « * 

“What is in the cauldron is taken out with the kitchen 
spoon ”— Arabic Proverb. 

“A thousand raps at the door but no salute or invitation, 
from within .”— Arabic Proverb. 

During the night, in the passing of a second, for no 
apparent reason and with all the Arab’s lamentable 
instability, Zarah grew suddenly tired of baiting her 
prisoner, and, with the extraordinary density of the 
woman in love, decided to make one last endeavour to 
break down Ralph Trenchard’s resistance. 

She could not understand, and she would never be able 
to get it into a mind narrowed by self-love, that one might 
as well try to stem the Niagara Falls with straw or hold 
a must elephant on a daisy-chain as to influence the invin¬ 
cible love of soul-mates. 

She decided she would offer Ralph Trenchard Helen’s 
liberty. She would offer to give up her mountain home, 
her freedom, her power. She would offer herself as his 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


255 


servant, his slave, to cook for him, to wait upon him, 
anything to keep him by her side, no matter if he returned 
her love or not, as long as he lived near her; and if that 
failed, as a last resource would use the despicable lever of 
the lowest type of coward. 

To gain her end she would threaten to commit suicide. 
So the night following the cutting of Helen’s hair, which 
was also the night preceding a tournament, in ’which the 
men were to show how much they had learned of the art of 
pugilism, she attired herself in great splendour and sum¬ 
moned Ralph Trenchard to her presence. Helen, sur¬ 
rounded by women who gossiped, knelt at the river edge 
rubbing silken garments on a stone, with Namlah mocking 
and jeering beside her when the Abyssinian, sent to fetch 
Ralph Trenchard, shouted her errand as she passed. 
Helen shrank back when Namlah suddenly sprang at her 
and wrenched the silken garment from her hand. 

“Thou fool!” Namlah shrilled as she knelt. “This 
wise, and this and this. The soap? Or hast thou eaten 
it in thy imbecility?” She leant across Helen and snatched 
at the soap, which slid into the water, then rung the 
garment as though it were the neck of an offending hen 
as she whispered: “Give me a message for the white 
man. Zarah offers him thy freedom for his love.” Down 
came the garment on the stone as though she essayed to 
soften the tough carcass of some female Methuselah of 
the poultry world as she screamed at the top of her voice: 
“Wilt thou never learn? Did Allah in his wisdom not 
teach thee even how to wash a garment? Take it and 
try, lest I smite thee with it!” She flung the silken 
remnant at Helen, who, eyes alight, caught it in both 
hands and crashed it on the rocks until one half fol¬ 
lowed the soap into the water, whereupon Namlah leant 
across her and gripped her wrists. 

“Fool! This wise, and this and this!” 

The women crowded round to watch Namlah swing¬ 
ing Helen’s arms like flails. 


256 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


“Tell him,” whispered Helen as she beat her best, 

‘‘that- Nay, Namlah, thou tearest out my arms. 

Behold, I can do no more.” She fell forward with the 
woman underneath, and in the confusion whispered her 
message. “Tell him I prefer death to my freedom at 
such a price,” and shrank back, for the benefit of the 
onlookers, when Namlah, flinging all that was left 
of the washing item in her face, ran off, with much 
cursing, up the path to where Yussuf waited in the 
shadows. 

And hope sprang up in Ralph Trenchard’s heart as he 
climbed the steps in answer to Zarah’s summons, followed 
by the Nubian at some distance. 

Suddenly, and with a most amazing clumsiness, Yussuf 
walked out from behind the great boulder straight into 
his arms. 

“Sorry!” said Trenchard shortly, as he tried to free 
himself from the grasp of the infuriated Arab. “You 
came out so-” 

“Hast no thoughts for others?” shouted Yussuf at the 
top of his voice. “Thine ear,” he whispered, whilst he 
shook Ralph Trenchard violently. “Zarah will offer thee 
thy white woman’s freedom for thy love. The white 
woman prefers death to freedom without thee. She loves 
thee. Nay,” he suddenly yelled, “wouldst push a blind 
man to his death?” The two seemed locked in anger as 
Al-Asad raced up the path. “A message,” he whispered. 
“Shake me in anger. Give me a message for thy woman— 
give me a message.” 

The Nubian was close upon them. 

Trenchard grasped the blind man and shook him. 

“Tell her to stand fast and to fear nothing,” he whis¬ 
pered, then shouted angrily. “How can I hear thy noise¬ 
less feet on the -” He reeled as Yussuf hurled him 

backwards and continued to climb the steps, whilst the 
blind man filled the night air with curses. 

Zarah was quite alone. 





ZARAH THE CRUEL 257 

The Nubian, under orders, sat down upon the steps 
to await developments. 

He was well content to wait. 

He had gauged the white man’s strength of resistance 
and had no fear that he would become entangled in the 
beautiful Arabian’s wiles. He smiled as he crept, as noise¬ 
lessly as a great cat, to the platform before the door and 
stretched himself flat upon it, the blackest spot in the 
black shadows, to listen to the woman he loved pleading 
for the love of one who loved another. 

Lost to all sense of shame as are those women who have 
not learned the meaning of self-control and self-sacrifice, 
Zarah pleaded with Ralph Trenchard for his continued 
presence by her side. Pleaded for his company and his 
comradeship so that she might enjoy the shadow of his 
great good looks and actual presence whilst keeping the 
substance of his love from her rival. 

She had made the greatest mistake in her toilette. 

None too over-dressed at the best of times, she had a 
startlingly undressed appearance as she stood like a 
beautiful exotic flow T er beside the Englishman. 

She had not—how could she in the name of decency?— 
discarded a single garment, but had donned the most 
transparent outfit in her wardrobe. 

Her feet were bare and jewelled, as were her arms, 
her hands, her waist. The trousers, worn by most Ara¬ 
bian women, were voluminous in their transparent folds, 
her body shone through a jewelled vest which fitted her 
like her skin. 

Trenchard looked at her from head to foot, and with 
the perverseness of the human mind immediately thought 
of the picture Helen had made as she stood beside her 
grandfather in the desperate battle; and he backed a 
pace before the Arabian’s semi-nudity, whilst the 
Nubian buried his face in his arm to stifle his cry of 
longing. 

“I love thee,” Zarah was saying softly, looking up at’ 


258 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


the man she loved with love-filled eyes. “I *ove thee, 
R-ralph Tr-r-enchar-r-d. I have loved thee ever since I 
lay against thy heart so many, many moons ago. I 
will give up my home, my people, I will name Al-Asad as 
ruler in my stead, I will follow thee upon the path of thy 
choice, to the country that should please thee. I will 
wait upon thee, serve thee, devote myself to thee, if thou 
wilt give up the other woman. I love thee.” 

“I have already told you, Zarah, that I do not love 
you, could never love you.” Ralph Trenchard, loathing 
the scene, spoke curtly, and stepped back quickly as 
Zarah flung herself at his feet. “Do get up,” he added 
in English, as he tried to loosen her grasp upon his knees. 
“If only you knew how we English loathe scenes like 
this, and what we think of hysterical, unbalanced 
people!” 

She sat back on her heels, lifting her hands in supplica¬ 
tion. 

“I offer you Helen R-raynor-r’s freedom if you will 
stay with me. I do not want to keep her. Let her go 
back to her own country. She is young; she will forget; 
she does not know what love is. Besides, I fear my slave. 
He is handsome; he, too, is young; he wishes to take a 
wife. I will send Helena safely away from him if you will 
stay with me.” 

Trenchard showed no sign of the horror of the fate in 
store for Helen; he spoke quite calmly, slowly, almost in¬ 
differently. 

“You will not gain anything if you hurt Helen. If 
she dies I die; if you try to harm her she will find a means 
of killing herself, and I shall kill myself. Not because 
of my love for her—our kind of love is higher than suicide, 
it endures—but only so that you shall find no pleasure 
in her death.” 

He pulled her hands apart and stepped back as she 
sprang to her feet. She failed to understand that, living 
or dead, she was no more to the man than one of the birds 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 250 

in its cage, and played what she mistakenly believed to 
be her trump card. 

“Then I will kill myself , R-r-alph Tr-renchar-r-d.” 
She choked with rage, the r’s in the English words rolling 
like little drums. “And you will never forget that upon 
your head will lie the death of a woman, never be able to 
wipe out the picture of my broken body lying amongst 
the rocks.” She ran close up to him, shaking with the 
unseemly rage of the uncontrolled woman. “I go to 
my death.” She pointed through the doorway, striking 
a most dramatic attitude, whilst watching for a sign 
of interest in her proceedings in the man’s indifferent 
face. “To my death!” she screamed as she saw none, and 
fled through the doorway, missing the astounded Nubian 
by an inch. 

She stopped upon the edge of the very steep incline 
and listened for the sound of footsteps hastening to her 
rescue. At the absence of all sound she looked over her 
shoulder, to see Ralph Trenchard, with his back to her, 
lighting a cigarette. She tore back into the room with 
the last shred of her restraint gone and swung him round 
by the arm. 

“Oh. you didn’t do it?” He looked her straight in the 
eyes. “We have women like you in England, never very 
young or very pretty, who, verging upon the sere and 
yellow, and with nothing to fill their days or occupy their 
minds, try to coerce the people they love by threats of 
suicide. They never get what they want, either. The 
slightest chain frets love, real love, you know. You can’t 
inspire love just because you keep the person you love, 
but who doesn’t love you , in the same house with you. You 
can’t hold love by cooking or serving. Love, real love, 
will thrive on a crust offered by the one loved, but will 
sicken at the sight of a basket of sweetmeats offered by 
anyone else.” He had no intention of giving her the 
slightest cause to hope by offering her any sympathy in 
her tantrums. He added coldly, cruelly, as he turned 


2 GO 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


from her: “It’s rather a pity these silly, hysterical 
women don’t carry out their threat of suicide • the world 
would be no loser by their death.” 

He backed before her as she burst into a torrent of 
reproach which ended in a storm of abuse. 

“. . . Go!” she screamed at the highest pitch of the 
Arabian voice, which is none too sweet in wrath. “To¬ 
morrow at the tournament I will decide what is best to 
be done with this white woman who is not fit to mingle 
with my women and children. Yea, even, owing to her dis¬ 
like of water have we cut her hair so that-” 

She screamed and struck at Ralph Trenchard as he 
caught her by the wrist and pulled her roughly to him. 

“What did you say? You’ve cut off Helen’s hair? All 
that wonderful golden mass! You have dared to do that? 
Speak, can’t }mu!” 

He flung her on the divan as she laughed and clapped 
her hands at the sight of his horror-stricken face, and 
laughed again at the plan for revenge which flashed into 
her mind. 

“So I have prevailed in making you feel, R-ralph 
Tr-r-enchar-r-d,” she shouted after him as he left the 
room and ran down the steps, followed by the amazed 
Nubian. 

She ran to the door and laughed until the mountains 
echoed and re-echoed to the sound, then turned and flung 
herself on the floor, where she gave way to the violent 
hysterics of the uncontrolled, jealous woman. 



CHAPTER XX 


“Tyrannical, cheating , of iU omen ” — Arabic Proverb. 

The overpowering heat of the day had given place to 
the lesser heat of early evening as the sun sank behind the 
western edge of the mountain ring. The interior of the 
ring looked like the inside of some rough-edged, painted 
flower-pot, with grey, purple, blue-black foundation and 
sides of green and richest reds and browns, melting to 
saffron, topaz, amethyst and rose, crowned by great peaks 
which seemed to flicker in the terrific heat radiated by the 
sun-scorched rock. Little golden, pink and crimson clouds, 
faintly stirred by the blessed evening breeze, sailed serenely 
across a sky of deepest blue which stretched, a gorgeous 
canopy, above the heads of the men seated on the ground 
or up the gentle incline rising from the plateau. 

Those opposite the steps down which Zarah would have 
to pass sat with knees to chin, placidly chewing Jcaat or 
smoking red or black sebel and longer pipes with big, open 
bowl. 

Those to the north and south of the steps sat sidewise, 
also contentedly chewing or smoking, with eyes fixed upon 
the steep path. 

There was no laughing, no gambling, no betting upon 
the outcome of the different sporting items in the tourna¬ 
ment for which they had foregathered. They were 
strangely quiet, with a certain expectancy in their eyes 
and a vast amount of meaning in their expressive gestures 
as they commented upon and argued about the tales the 
Nubian had spread anent their mistress’s strange behav¬ 
iour of the night before. 

“Bism ’ allah! upon the very edge, with one eye upon the 
running water into which the Lion thought she desired to 

261 


2G2 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


throw herself, and one eye upon the white man, who, by the 
wool! is a man of strong heart, even if he be an infidel.” 

Bowlegs laughed as he stretched his circular limbs and 
pressed himself against his neighbour so as to make room 
for Yussuf as he came towards them, led by “His Eyes,” 
down the path made for him through the serried ranks. 

“Welcome, brother, thou true believer in the shaven 
crown,” cried the handsome youth who had been swung 
like a club, and who had not followed the precepts of the 
Prophet to the extent of shaving his head. “Hast heard 
that the white woman, who holdeth the heart of the man 
who loveth her and who is loved of the beautiful Zarah, 
and may Allah guide their footsteps in the crookedness 
of their paths-” As he spoke he pushed his way be¬ 

tween Bowlegs and Yussuf, and as he looked up into the 
mutilated face, touched the blind man gently. “Hast 
heard that the tiger-cat, in her rage, has caused the head 
of the white woman to be shaven so that, if she were lost 
in the Robaa-el-Khali, the ostrich might even wish to 
brood upon it as her egg?” 

The men shouted in ribald mirth as they bandied jokes, 
mostly unprintable in their Oriental flavour. 

“Yea, and shaven after the setting of the sun,” said 
the Patriarch bitterly, whilst every man in earshot touched 
his favourite lucky amulet or made the finger gesture 
against ill-luck. “Behold, will Zarah’s mocking of Fate 
surely bring catastrophe upon the camp, for what but 
misfortune can follow the shaving of a crown after the 
setting of the sun?” 

The fine sons of one of the most superstition-ridden 
races in the world performed divers tricks to placate the 
fury of the false god of ill-luck they had raised up in 
their minds, then continued in their merriment. 

“Who has seen the shaven head?” 

“No eyes have seen the head, O brother, but mine own 
eyes have seen Namlah the Busy, seated like a bee in £he 
heart of a golden flower, weaving a kerchief from the 
infidel’s wondrous hair.” 



ZARAH THE CRUEL 


263 


Bowlegs shouted with laughter. 

“Yea! verily! a kerchief to replace the gentle Zarah’s 
garments, torn asunder ’twixt her teeth and fingers in 
her wrath at the white man’s coldness.” 

“Or to wipe the tiger-cat’s face, which, wet with tears 
and hot with anger, was like an over-ripe fruit of the 
doom tree, fallen upon the sand!” 

“Or to remove the dust from her chamber, wrecked like 
unto a house swept by the hurricane, with feathers of 
many fowl, liberated from the burst cushions, clinging to 
the silken curtains and her hair.” 

Prodded by Fate, the handsome youth turned and laid 
his hand on Yussuf’s arm whilst the men crowded closer 
yet to listen to their conversation. 

“O brother,” he said laughingly, “thou who hast suf¬ 
fered, thou who even now dost pass sleepless nights of 
pain, wilt thou not in thy goodness, to quieten the agony 
of the tiger-cat’s gentle heart, give unto her a few drops 
of the sweet water prescribed thee by yon old herbalist 
for sleep?” 

Yussuf smiled as best he could for the distortion of his 
mouth, as he searched in his cummerbund and pulled out 
a flask, filled with the strong narcotic he took to still 
the throbbing of his tom nerves when the wind blew from 
the north. 

“ ’Tis overpowerful, little brother. A drop too little 
and she wakes from her sleep like a tigress bereft of her 
cubs; a drop too much and she wakes not at all.” 

“Twenty drops and what . . .” 

The voice from behind was stilled suddenly as the men 
rose quickly and stood staring up to the platform out¬ 
side Zarah’s dwelling. 

Zarah stood looking down. 

She stood almost upon the spot from where some years 
ago she had hurled her spear at the fighting dogs, and, 
killing the one intended for a gift to her father’s guest, had 
followed the decree of Fate, who had tangled her life’s 
thread with those of her white prisoners. 


264 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


“Zarah is a very queen of loveliness!” 

“Yea! with hair like the setting sun!” 

The hawk-eyed men with the superb sight of those who 
live in the clear atmosphere of great spaces criticized 
in detail the Arabian’s garments, which at such a distance 
would have shown as a white blur to the eyes of the 
westerner, accustomed as he is to an horizon bounded 
by walls and a sky ever limited by chimney-pots or par¬ 
tially obliterated by smoke or fog. 

“The white man tarries! Would that the Lion were 
here to tell once again of the calmness of his face in the 
storm of yester-night.” 

“Perchance does his heart fail at the thought of the 
maiden’s shaven crown.” 

“Likewise does she tarry, fearful perchance of behold¬ 
ing her lover’s eyes empty of love light.” 

“ ‘She gave her the vinegar to drink on the wings of 
flies.’ ” Yussuf touched his sad face as he quoted the 
proverb. “Verily were the words of wisdom written to de¬ 
scribe the refinement of the tortures our thrice gentle 
mistress meteth out to her prisoners.” 

There was not a movement, not a whisper from the men 
when Zarah turned and lifted her hand, but there came a 
great cry from hundreds of throats as Helen appeared in 
the doorway, followed by the two gigantic Abyssinian 
women. 

“Hast seen the shaven crown, brother?” 

The handsome youth turned to Yussuf, who stood 
with his sightless face raised to the skies. 

“Nay, blind one,” he replied quietly, all the merriment 
gone from his face. “I have seen the white woman. She 
stands behind the dread Zarah, her golden hair, even the 
length of thy longest finger, twining about her head like 
a crown of flowers upon a young acacia tree. She is like 
an orchard of choice fruit in her beauty. Yea! like an 
orchard of pomegranates and peaches, and as the gentle 
incline of the rocks where the evening sun kissetli the 
oranges and apricots and luscious fig. If it were not that 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


265 


she is of a race of infidels, likewise cursed with a spirit of 
mockery and a lack of gratitude, I would e’en woo her in 
the shadows of the night and make of her my woman.” 
He moved forward, drawn by Helen’s radiant beauty, 
as she descended the steps fanning Zarah with a circular, 
painted fan of dried palm leaves. 

The men stood as though spellbound at the sight of 
the two beautiful girls. 

They forgot the tournament, their wrath, their merri¬ 
ment ; they stood speechless, staring, then moved forward 
in a body as Zarah reached the bottom step and made a 
way for her up to where an ebony chair, inlaid with 
gold, stood upon a carpet of many colours. 

The expression of Zarah’s sullen face was almost as 
black as the shadows spreading half-way up the moun¬ 
tains ; her heavy brows were bent above her strange eyes; 
her crimson mouth set in a line which boded no good to 
those who might thwart her. 

A chance word, an indiscreet gesture, would be spark 
enough to start the conflagration, and Fate, close to 
Helen Raynor, stood ready to fire the Arabian’s raging 
jealousy as Ralph Trenchard, followed by the Nubian, 
walked slowly from the men’s quarters towards them. 

There was not a sound and scarcely a movement in the 
vast throng of men as they stood looking from one to the 
other of the three who, even in the desert, made the 
seemingly inevitable love triangle. And so enthralled 
were they, and so oblivious were the three who composed 
the triangle to their surroundings, that no notice was 
taken of the downtrodden, docile women who, headed by 
Namlah, and imbued with the spirit of insubordination 
which was sweeping the camp, also with a fierce desire 
to see the white woman’s shaven head, crept in ones and 
twos from behind the rock buttress which hid their 
quarters from the greater part of the plateau. 

They stole along the river edge, behind their men, who 
were too engrossed in the picture before them even to bet, 
let alone to notice the doings of their womenkind. 


266 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


They crept up behind the gigantic Abyssinian women 
who stood behind Zarah’s chair, and turned and looked 
at them as a couple of Yemen buffaloes might turn to 
inspect an ant heap. 

The radiance of the blazing sky seemed to fill the 
mountain ring for a moment as Ralph Trenchard passed 
down the path made for him by the men, and stood sud¬ 
denly clear of them, and exactly opposite Helen as she 
fanned the Arabian. 

The mountains echoed Helen’s name as he called to her, 
holding out his arms, and her cry of joy as she flung the 
circular fan with pointed edges sideways, so that by mis¬ 
chance it caught in the Arabian’s hair, and ran to her lover. 

The rocks echoed Zarah’s screams of wrath and pain 
and her sharp order to the Abyssinians, and the down¬ 
trodden women’s screams of hate, as they swept round 
the chair headed by Namlah, and cut Helen off. 

Zarah shrieked in agony as the fan pulled her head down 
to one side, scratching her face and her shoulder, and 
beat the arms of the chair and the Abyssinians’ glistening 
bodies as they tried their best to relieve her whilst she 
fought like a wild cat, with her eyes fixed on the fight 
which was taking place in front of her. 

The women were trying to prevent Helen from reach¬ 
ing her lover, and the men were endeavouring, and none 
too gently, to push the women on one side, so that the 
white man they had come to admire and like might meet 
the woman of his heart. They did it for the sport of the 
thing, and to assert their authority over their women; 
also, in their heart of hearts was there a certain amount 
of admiration for Helen’s beauty and courage. 

The women who had come to titter and jeer at Helen’s 
bald head were consumed with wrath at their disappoint¬ 
ment and fought their men tooth and nail, taking ad¬ 
vantage of the scrum to pay off many an old score and 
avenge many a lash of the whip or tongue. The men, 
amused at first, then astounded, then really angry at 
this sudden exhibition of women’s rights, slapped their 



ZARAH THE CRUEL 


267 


own particular womenfolk with the flat of their hand, then 
smote them smartly with the mihjan, and finally shook 
them violently until their sleek heads seemed like to leave 
their shoulders and their beautiful teeth to break in their 
chattering. 

Ralph Trenchard stood at the back of the men who 
slapped and shook and cursed; Helen stood, looking to¬ 
wards him, towering above the dusky little women like 
a young acacia tree in the bush. 

In spite of the peril in which they knew themselves 
to stand, they smiled across and called messages to each 
other, which were lost in the universal torrents of abuse 
and vociferous yelling, interspersed with screams and 
sounds of slapping and tearing. 

Namlah, wedged on the outer circle of the maelstrom, 
fought like a fury to get at Helen, screaming abuse, hurl¬ 
ing her fighting sisters from her path in the excess of her 
seeming rage, whilst Yussuf, led by “His Eyes,” rattled 
his staff on the shins of the gentler sex as he strove to 
reach Namlah. 

Bowlegs brought about their meeting. 

Aided by the mighty muscle of his legs, he leapt free 
of the shrieking sisterhood high into the air and, in a 
manner somewhat reminiscent of a hawk and a field mouse, 
pounced upon his second and obese wife, whom he had 
spied fighting with the best in much torn raiment. 

The tremendous impact from above flung her back¬ 
wards against Namlah, who in her turn was flung back¬ 
wards against Yussuf. 

Proceeded a pretty passage of arms and tongues be¬ 
tween these two, during which the blind man slipped a 
silver bottle down the front of Namlah’s torn qamis whilst 
she belaboured him, and “Yussuf’s Eyes” rained blows 
upon his mother’s back. 

“Ai! ai! ai!” she wailed, as she rolled the flask in the 
top part of her torn petticoat. “Would’st tear the very 
tannwrah from my limbs, thou wifeless, childless, breaker 
of the Prophet’s law? Push me forward—ha! thou 


268 


Z All AH THE CRUEL 

would’st push me forward, thou rascal son of mine, even 
unto the first line of my fighting sisters. Well, push, push 
hard, so that I leave the mark of my nails upon the white 
girl’s face!” 

Helen turned at the sound of the woman’s voice and 
raised herself on tiptoe the better to see, and caught the 
look in the dusky little woman’s twinkling eye, which in 
no wise responded to the wrath of her voice and gestures. 

“Yea! white woman,” she shrieked, “come nearer to me, 
or let me come nearer unto thee, if thou art not afraid. 
I will show thee what manner of woman it is thou did’st 
mimic and mock.” 

“Afraid,” cried Helen, forcing a way through the men. 
“Afraid! Come to me and-” 

She reeled back as Namlah flung herself upon her, 
pushed by her son, who pulled the blind man after him, 
whilst the men who were not actually engaged in taming 
their shrews surged round them, shouting in delight. 

Namlah landed right on Helen’s chest, to which she 
clung as a woodpecker to a tree trunk. 

“Take this! Ten drops this night before she sleeps— 
then wait in the shadows,” she whispered; then shrieked: 
“Ha! thou infidel. I would tear out thine eyes, I-” 

“Yussuf’s Eyes” suddenly and forcibly pinched the 
underpart of his mother’s arm, upon which she yelled, 
let go her hold on Helen and leapt at him, then slid meekly 
to earth and tried to cover her face with her torn veil, 
which she spread out to arm’s length as Helen hid the 
silver flask in her belt. 

The sun had set, leaving the sky in a tumult of violent 
colouring, through which, in a small patch of deepest 
blue, shone one great star. Helen looked up to the ban¬ 
ners of gold and red and orange, the curtains of saffron, 
the trails of rose and wispy bands of grey, then looked 
across at Zarah, who walked slowly towards her, blood 
trickling down her scratched cheek. Her eyes flamed in 
her white face, which showed over the top of the dead- 
black satin cloak she had wrapped round her like a skin; 




ZARAH THE CRUEL 269 

and Ralph Trenchard, who saw the menace in her sombre 
eyes and the cruel twist to her mouth, seized the men 
nearest him and threw them on one side as he raced to get 
to Helen before the Arabian could reach her. 

He was a second too late. 

Even as he touched her one of the gigantic Abyssinian 
women reached her and, lifting her like a straw, carried 
her to where Zarah stood insolently, contemptuously 
watching the scene, whilst Yussuf stepped in front of him 
and pushed him back as “His Eyes” got tangled up in 
his feet. 

“For God’s sake get out of my way, you fool!” Tren¬ 
chard shouted, and lifted the dumb youth by the neck 
of his jubbah and dropped him as Yussuf rushed blindly 
at him, guided by his voice. 

“To-night, when the dog barks thrice,” he whispered, 
then shouted: “Harm not ‘Mine Eyes’ lest I stray from 
the right path so that-” 

He stopped and turned as Helen’s voice came clearly 
through the night air. 

“Don’t worry about me, Ra! I’m all right; no one can 
harm me,” she cried; then stepped back quickly as Zarah 
turned on her and, seizing her by the wrist, pulled her 
forward. 

Held by Yussuf, who whispered without ceasing, Tren¬ 
chard stood in the centre of a semicircle of men and women 
with the Patriarch at the end nearest Zarah and Helen, 
and Namlah, in a most indecorous and dishevelled state, 
at the other. 

The two beautiful girls stood exactly opposite the man 
they loved, with the gigantic negresses close behind. 

“Move not—have patience until the dog barks thrice 
to-night—make no effort to help—all is well—Allah 
watches over thee and thine in thy need—nay! make no 
sign—nothing can be done to her until the morrow.” 

Yussuf whispered without ceasing, whilst, sick to the 
heart at the menace in the air, Ralph Trenchard stood 
waiting, with what patience he could command. 



270 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


Zarah raised her hand and, fully aware of the backing 
she would get from the women, began to speak. 

“I am speaking for my children,” she cried, “the chil¬ 
dren this white woman has mocked and derided, and for 
whom she has not had one word of thanks, not one little 
feeling of gratitude.” 

“ Na’am , na’am /” wailed Namlah in full acquiescence. 

“For myself I do not mind that she strikes me until 
the blood runs, but my children I will protect!” 

“Akhkh!” wailed Namlah, crouching on the ground and 
beating her breast with much vigour. 

“And I will punish those who hurt my children. Yea! 
I will make of them a sport, a mock. The white man— 
nay, Al-Asad, come thou to me—the white man I bear no 
ill will, for he has worked well among my sons.” She 
put her hand upon the Nubian’s arm when he ran across 
to her, and smiled up into his handsome face as she shook 
her head. “I am mistress here; thou shalt not touch the 
white man. For the white woman . . .” She looked at 
Helen, who looked at her, then across to Ralph Trenchard, 
who stood with Yussuf’s hand upon his arm and “His 
Eyes” at his feet. “For the white woman who has derided 
my children I do now place her amongst them as their serv¬ 
ant, and to humiliate her even as she has humiliated them, 
do order the Abyssinian Aswad to shave her head this in¬ 
stant, before us all, so that she appears not before man¬ 
kind without-” 

Her words were drowned in the scream which burst 
uncontrollably from Helen, and the shout from her lover 
as he flung himself towards her, only to be tripped by the 
dumb youth at his feet. 

“Ra! Ra!” cried Helen, clutching her lovely curls in 
both hands. “For God’s sake save me, Ra; don’t let them 

do it, don’t, don’t-” She turned and struck the 

negress across the face as the Abyssinian caught her by 
the arm, and struck again and again as Ralph Trenchard 
tore at the arms of the youth who clung to him like a 
leech. Helen made no other sound as she wrenched her- 





ZARAH THE CRUEL 271 

self free from the woman who held her, nor when, filled 
with the desire to kill, she flung herself upon Zarah. 

The Arabian stepped back quickly and laughed, laughed 
until the place rang with the sound, then flung off her 
mantle and drove her dagger down on to Helen’s heart 
just as the Patriarch sprang and caught her hand. 

Helen turned and ran towards her lover, and struck 
at Namlah, who suddenly caught her by the knees and 
held her, screaming abuse. 

The men and women stood silent, looking from one to 
the other of the three principals in the love drama, then 
turned their attention to the Patriarch, who by that 
time was speaking. 

He made a magnificent picture as he imposed his will 
upon the furious woman for the welfare of his 
brethren. 

“In the days of thy father the Sheikh, my daughter,” 
he said, “no blood was spilled, no punishment proclaimed, 
after the setting of the sun. If thou desirest the death 
of this woman, then must thou wait until sunrise. Neither 
shalt thou bring misfortune upon this camp by shaving 
a head after the setting of the sun; that also must thou 
order to be done after its rising.” 

“Wah! wah!” yelled the men, and smote the women who 
dared to differ. 

“And for fear of the wrath of these women, who should 
have the whip laid across them for their unseemly be¬ 
haviour, keep thou the white woman in thy chamber to¬ 
night.” 

“Yea!” cried Yussuf, walking forward, led by “His 
Eyes,” until he stood exactly opposite the Arabian, who 
withdrew a pace before his terrible appearance. “And 
in the name of thy father, O Zarah, and,for fear of the 
Nubian’s wrath being vented upon him before the rising 
of the sun, I claim the watching of the white man this 
night. Fear not that he sleeps over-sweetly in my care.” 
He turned and spat in Ralph Trenchard’s direction, then, 
led by “His Eyes,” strode towards him and seized him by 


272 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


the arm. “Thou infidel,” he cried savagely, “thou and 
thy white woman!” 

Zarah raised her hand. 

“The women to the cooking, the men to the eating, the 
morrow for the punishment.” She turned and looked 
at Ralph Trenchard, her eyes filled with a terrible 
jealousy. “Look upon thy white woman for the last 
time, for, behold! the morrow thou shalt be taken back 
across the desert by the road by which thou didst come 
unto her. She shall w r ork here amongst my people, w r ith 
her shaven head for a space, then will I send her to the 
slave market, where her white skin will fetch a great 
price. Get thou up, Helen R-r-aynor-r!” 

She pointed up the steps. 

Helen turned and held out her arms. 

“Ra! Beloved! I love you!” 

The Arabian struck down her arms as Yussuf pulled 
Ralph Trenchard back. 

“Come thou with me, thou infidel!” he cried. 

“Get thou up, Helen R-r-aynor-r,” commanded the 
Arabian. 

The stars blazed in the sky as the women scuttled 
back to their quarters and the men talked together. 

“Behold, has my acacia tree no luck!” said the hand¬ 
some youth. 

“As saith the proverb of those whose luck changeth 
not,” replied Bowlegs, as he shook his fist after his re¬ 
treating, obese and second wife. “ ‘The misfortune either 
falls upon the camel or upon the camel driver or upon the 
owner of the camel . 5 Ha! wouldst show me what thou 
hast learned from the white man ? 55 

He caught the Arab who had sprung at him in a 
friendly desire to show his pugilistic skill, tossed him on 
one side like a bundle of clothes, and shouted defiance to 
the whole camp. 

So that the tournament, if somewhat impromptu and 
lacking a referee, took place after all and lasted well 
into the night. 


CHAPTER XXI 


“At the close of night the cries are heard 

—Arabic Proverb. 

Yussuf, with his back against the door of Ralph Tren- 
chard’s hut, lifted his face to the star-bestrewn sky. 

He waited. 

He waited for the striking of his hour of revenge, which 
had been fixed by Fate in the beginning of Time; he 
waited imperturbably for Allah, in His compassion and 
wisdom, to remove the Nubian, who sat cross-legged and 
contemplative and to all appearances absolutely unmov¬ 
able by his side. 

Al-Asad sat leaning slightly forward, looking into 
the shadows with dreamy, half-shut eyes, then turned his 
head and listened as though, above the distant noise of 
the men’s shouting and laughter, some sound had reached 
his ears. 

“Camels!” he said softly. “Camels going out. Me- 
thought our brothers were having their fill of wrestling?” 

Yussuf also had heard the sound of a dromedary grunt¬ 
ing its disapproval as it made the steep ascent, but no 
sign of his inner perturbation showed on his placid, mu¬ 
tilated face. 

“Zarah the Merciless makes ready for the white man’s 
journey into the desert to-morrow. Our brethren of the 
stables even now revile her shadow, for instead of loading 
the dromedaries with water skins and provender, they 
would try their strength against Bowlegs, who, in his 
vanity, swears by the wind that no man can excel him 
in the games taught by the white man.” 

273 


274 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


Al-Asad laughed scornfully as he rose to his feet, 
swallowing the bait which hung from the line Fate dangled 
in front of him for his removal. 

“Bowlegs!” He spoke in infinite scorn as he pulled 
himself up to his full height, and laughed again as he 
caused the muscle to ripple up and down his arms. 
“ ’Twere well to show the little man with legs even as 
round as thy turban that there is one who can spike him 
upon his finger. Thinkest thou, Yussuf, that the white 
maid will lose her golden covering at the rising of the sun? 
’Twere a pity to my mind to mutilate such beauty in a 
woman, even if she be sent to the slave market to ease 
the tiger-cat’s jealousy.” 

Yussuf pulled at his hubble-bubble, making no sign of 
his longing to accelerate his companion’s departure. 

“Methinks the beautiful Zarah spoke in haste and in 
anger. Perchance she is tired of her white playthings 
and yearns for a master.” 

“Thinkest thou, who hast learned much wisdom in thy 
blindness, that she will come to love me?” Al-Asad asked 
eagerly. 

“Yea! she loves thee even now. Thou art her real mate. 
The great tiger-cats mate with one another, my son, and 
were it not wise to stay here, for fear that thou art bested 
by Bowlegs, and that the news of thy defeat is carried to 
her.” 

He showed no sign of his intense satisfaction when the 
Nubian, primed with a desire to reduce Bowlegs to shreds, 
ran, laughing, down the path. 

Strong in the fatalism of the East, Yussuf sat on, pull¬ 
ing calmly at his hubble-bubble, waiting for the striking 
of his hour, and made no answer to a slight hissing sound 
which came from behind the rocks. Instead, he rose 
slowly and pushed open the door of the hut, and, with the 
Oriental’s love of elaborate detail where intrigue is con¬ 
cerned, shouted at Ralph Trenchard: 

“Thou infidel, thou white dog, sleepest thou? Hast 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


275 


thou no bowels of compassion for the white woman? Dost 
thou leave her here to work as a slave, without an ache 
in thy heart of stone?” 

Ralph Trenchard sprang up and crossed the hut quickly 
at the blind man’s beckoning finger. 

“ ‘Mine Eyes’ waits without to lead you by the hidden 
path to where the dromedaries stand,” Yussuf whispered. 
“Nay, speak not, tarry not, there is little time to spare. 
The dromedaries must be but specks upon the horizon 
when the men cease their games to seek their slumber.” 

Trenchard wrapped himself in the burnous Yussuf 
offered him and followed him to the door, where they stood 
for a moment in the shadows, listening to the shouts of 
the men, which came startingly clear on the night air. 

“Bowlegs fights with the Lion,” whispered Yussuf. 
“Now is the moment chosen by Allah for the escape, 
‘Mine Eyes’ will lead you to the dromedaries, and I will 
go to fetch her Excellency, to carry her over the danger¬ 
ous places and down the steep path to where love and 
happiness will await her.” 

“But if the Arabian does not sleep? How then?” 

“Then must you go to her and break her neck to save 
your own woman. What is she, this daughter of two 
races? We tire of her. If she dies he who will govern 
in her stead will be chosen by the casting of lots. Hasten, 
Excellency, for we know not at what hour the medicine 
of sleep was administered unto the tiger-cat. Also do the 
women, wdio hate the white woman and who are the yeast 
wherewith this trouble has been fermented, rise early to be 
about the business of the new day.” 

Trenchard, wrapped in the burnous , followed Yussuf 
as he made his way without hesitation to the spot where 
“His Eyes” sat in the shadows. 

Yussuf whispered the dumb youth’s name and questioned 
him, and nodded his head in satisfaction when the youth, 
in the code they had invented, tapped the answers to the 
questions upon his friend’s arm. 


270 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


“All is ready, Excellency.” Yussuf spoke as calmly 
as if he discussed a pleasure trip to the nearest oasis. 
“Namlah waits at the edge of the sands of death. The 
camels are well laden with water and bread for many 
days. They are the swiftest in Arabia, renowned from 
Hadramut to Oman. Bred in Oman, they will need no 
drink for ten days if there is none to spare. Namlah 
accompanies you, and-” 

“And you, Yussuf? You’re coming with us; we can’t 
leave you behind to face the racket. You have got to 
come. ‘Your Eyes’ can’t let his mother go without him.” 

Yussuf smiled and shook his head and laid his hand upon 
the dumb youth’s shoulder, who also smiled and shook his 
head. 

“Excellency, not for ten thousand golden lira would I 
be away from the camp when the tiger-cat learns of the 
flight. A piece of news for you, white man, who com¬ 
prehends not the guile of this woman of mixed blood. Did 
you think she had tired of you? Nay! by the beard she 
loves you even a hundred times more for your refusal of 
her love. She sends you to Hareek after the rising of 
the sun, only to follow you and to beguile you in the 
solitude of the Red Desert. There is no leech that clings 
so close to its victim as a woman to the one she loves 
but who does not return that love. There is no trick she 
will not descend to, no lie she will not utter, no promise 
she will not make, with no intent to keep, to gain her 
end. This is the commencement of my revenge—the end, 
Excellency, will be the death of her who blinded me. I 
have waited for this revenge these many years, even from 
the moment when the sun faded from my sight. I and 
‘Mine Eyes’ will follow you, and if we do not overtake 
you by the noon, then place yourself in Namlah’s keeping. 
She is of the desert born.” He raised his right hand and 
turned his sightless face to the skies. “May Allah guide 
you, and keep you, and bring you to everlasting peace.” 

Trenchard stood for a moment to watch the blind man 



ZARAH THE CRUEL 


277 


make his almost miraculous way through the rocks which 
skirted the west end of the plateau, then turned and fol¬ 
lowed the dumb youth, who smiled and nodded his head 
in his delight at the trick which was being played upon 
the Arabian. And Namlah rose from where she sat in 
the shadows thrown by three dromedaries hobbled at the 
commencement of the hidden path across the quicksands, 
and pressed her hand against her forehead in humble 
salutation and smiled up at her son, and laughed softly 
in the delight she also felt at the way the beautiful Zarah 
was being duped. Within the hour she might have to 
give her life in her fight for the liberty she had lost some 
many years back when captured in the desert, or she 
might lose it in saving that of the white woman she had 
grown to love; but with all the Oriental’s fatalism, she 
had resigned herself to liberty or to recapture, to life 
or death. Allah had decided the result in the womb of 
Time. 

Kismet! 

Yussuf’s Eyes pressed the back of his hand against his 
forehead, then bent and touched Ralph Trenchard’s foot 
as a sign that he was willing to serve the white man to the 
end, whilst Namlah, smiling all over her homely face, 
translated the gestures the dumb boy made as he tried to 
make Trenchard understand. 

“He says, Excellency, that before the sun is above 
our heads at noon he will have guided the Blind One to 
you upon the path we shall have made across the desert. 
He loves you for your gentleness and strength, O man 
of the great white race, and prays you to succour \ussuf 
if aught should befall him before he reaches the great City 
of Damascus, which is his home and my home.” 

Trenchard raised his right hand and made his oath 
after the manner of the Arabs. 

“Before my God, who is thy God, I swear to make 
myself responsible for the comfort, welfare and happiness 
of the three who have so befriended me and mine. I swear 


278 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


that my descendants, unto the farthest generation, shall 
befriend thy descendants, so that in some small way I 
shall pay my debt of gratitude.” He smiled down at the 
enraptured little woman. “Let us sit awhile whilst we 
wait. Come, Namlah, tell me of the life thou wilt lead 
in Damascus with thy people.” 

The stillness of the night was broken by the grumbling 
of the dromedaries, the distant shouts of the men, and 
the body-woman’s whispered words as she told him of the 
house she would buy or rent in the Bazaar, with rugs 
upon the floor and many brass pots and pans of her own, 
filled with milk and butter from her own kine. 

“. . . and when her Excellency returns to Arabia, then 
will Namlah wait upon her,” she said, smiling at the 
thought, being sure, with the fatalist’s conviction, of a 
happy ending to the flight. “Then will her golden hair 
once more glisten like the silk in the sun which makes 
of the Bazaar a paradise.” She paused for a moment 
as she drew out a packet wrapped in a cloth. “We have 
gifts which perchance his Excellency in his goodness will 
allow his humble servants to present to the Sit upon 
her marriage as a token of the gratitude the servants 
have in their hearts for the gentleness of the white 
people.” 

Trenchard took the packet, removed the cloth, and 
looked at the exquisite golden kerchief. 

“By Jove! what a beautiful thing,” he exclaimed. 

Namlah smiled and nodded her sleek head at his genu¬ 
ine admiration. 

“It is woven of her Excellency’s hair!” 

“Helen’s hair!” He turned to Yussuf’s Eyes as the 
youth pressed something hard and heavy into his hands, 
speaking by gesture, which his mother translated. 

His fine teeth gleamed and his beautiful eyes flashed 
as he watched Trenchard remove the wrapping from the 
heavy object. 

“However did you get this?” Trenchard cried, as he 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 279 

delightedly turned his own automatic over in his hand and 
released the full clip. 

“The mistress, and may Allah guide a bullet to her 
black heart, commanded the Patriarch, who is the oldest 
amongst us and possessed of a very devil of gaming, to 
guard the weapon of death for your departure, Excel¬ 
lency. The old one, bereft of his last piastre and of the 
very qamis from about his shrunken old body, did lose the 
weapon in a bet to my son when you did wrestle with and 
overthrow the Nubian.’’ 

Trenchard tried to express his delight at the gifts, 
upon which, with all the Arab’s genuine and world-famed 
hospitality, the two natives offered him all they possessed. 

“My son,” whispered Namlah, “will live with me in 
the Bazaar, yea! and with us will sojourn Yussuf, his 
friend. The blind one will sit peacefully in the sun until 
he find a wife to take pity upon him, whilst ‘His Eyes,’ 
even my son, will sell the steel of Damascus inlaid with 
gold to the faithful and to the infidel. Our home will 
be humble, O white man, but our food and our drink, our 
raiment and our couch, will be for you and her Excel¬ 
lency if your Excellencies should see fit to honour our 

humble dwelling and I-—” She stopped suddenly and 

held up her hand as she listened to the sound of a dog 
barking. 

It barked angrily, at which sound the little woman shook 
her head. 

“Verily, ’tis a dog!” she whispered. “When the blind 
one shall have carried her Excellency safely by the steep 
and dangerous path, which is midway between here and 
where Zarah the Merciless sleeps, then will he bark thrice, 
and in all the kennels there is not one who can say if 
it be a dog which barks or Yussuf. Methinks. he is over 
long upon the road.” She clasped her hands together 
upon her faithful heart. “Has mischance befallen them? 
Does your Excellency think that mischance eauseth him 
to tarry thus?” 



280 


ZAKAH THE CRUEL 


Mischance did not cause Yussuf to tarry. Seated in 
the shadows beneath the window through which Namlah 
had spied upon the Arabian and Al-Asad, he waited calmly 
for the moment of his revenge. 

# # sfr sfc 

There was utter silence and stillness inside the building. 
No sound of voice or movement gave Yussuf any indica¬ 
tion as to w'hat had taken place in the last hour, neither 
in his blindness had he any means by which to find out 
if the Arabian slept or if she lay awake upon the divan 
watching the stars through the doorway. 

He sat as immovable as the Fate to which, as an Arab, 
he was resigned, and he made no movement when Zarah’s 
mocking laugh suddenly broke the silence. 

Helen sat on the floor with her back against the wall, 
the light from the lamp shining on the golden curls which 
were to be shaven on the morrow. 

A shaven crown! 

The Hindoo widow! The vision of bald pate seen in 
the mirror ’twixt the curtains of the hair-dresser’s cubicle! 
The asvogel sitting disconsolately on its perch in the 
Zoological Gardens. 

She shivered as the pictures flashed across her mind. 

Zarah, lying like a tiger behind the golden bars of her 
elevated bed, laughed when Helen suddenly clasped 
her head in uncontrollable horror, twisting her fingers in 
her curls, and she laughed again w r hen the white girl 
sprang to her feet and stood looking up with the world of 
rebellion in her eyes. 

“Do you remember my vision, Helen, dear school- 
friend?” she said mockingly in Arabic, “when I saw you 
in the dust at my feet and the white man coming towards 
me? Verily will you be in the dust to-morrow, and so 
covered therewith that my children will walk upon you 
and cleanse their feet and sandals upon your raiment. 
You fool!” She slid her feet over the edge and stood 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


281 


upright upon the fourth step, straight, slender and very 
beautiful; then, balancing herself upon her precarious 
foothold with outstretched arms, descended slowly and 
walked to where Helen stood against the wall. She 
laughed as she looked at Helen’s golden curls. 

“I hate you, Helen R-r-aynor-r. I hated you the first 
time I say you in Cairo, when you tried to show your 
superior breeding to the contemptible half-caste.” 

“I did not.” 

“Fo?z, whose grandfather was of a caste of water car¬ 
riers, whilst my father’s fathers dwelt in the shadow of 
the Great Pharaohs and my mother at the Court of Spain. 
The white man shall see you with your shaven crown; 
then, when the picture of your bald head is set for eternity 
in his mind, so that, waking or sleeping, he will laugh 
at the thought of you, I will ride out to meet him in the 
desert, to sit with him under the moon, to talk with him 
until dawn, to sing to him until his eyes close in dreams 
of my beauty. You fool, to pit yourself against me!” 

Helen smiled as she looked at the Arabian from head to 
foot. She was sick with fear of the morrow, and sick 
with disappointment at the absence of all sign of help, 
but she smiled with the indomitable spirit of the splendid 
race from which she sprang. She took no notice of Zarah 
when she stretched herself upon a divan in a corner of 
the room, nor of the body-women when they passed her, 
laughing derisively and making signs of contempt with 
their expressive fingers. She watched them descend the 
steps, and involuntarily listened to the jokes they bandied 
amongst themselves about the ceremony of shaving, which 
would take place at the waking of their mistress at the 
rising of the sun; then sat down with her back to the 
wall, hoping against hope for a sound or a sight of 
Namlah or Yussuf. 

As there could be no doubt as to Zarah’s intention of 
carrying out her threat, the situation was desperate; and 
the help promised seemed so vague, hanging upon the 


282 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


chance that the Arabian would ask for sherbet or coffee 
before she went to sleep—if she went to sleep. 

She was just as capable of staying awake the whole 
night, smoking her naghileh or countless cigarettes without 
touching food or coffee, as she was of sleeping, without 
stirring, until dawn. 

And if she called for coffee and drank it, drugged, and 
slept, what then? 

What could Namlah, a humble slave, do, even if she 
connived with Yussuf, to further their escape? 

“Bring me sherbet instantly!” 

Yussuf made no movement as the words came to him 
through the window. Helen’s heart beat heavily as she 
prayed for help in her hour of great need. 

“Now, God, help me now” she whispered, as she rose 
slowly and crossed the room to the corner where she pre¬ 
pared the drinks or messes of sweetmeats the Arabian 
consumed frequently in the night. With her back to her 
tormentor she pulled the flask which contained the drug 
from inside her belt and unscrewed the tight-fitting top, 
and with steady hand dropped ten drops into the golden 
goblet which Zarah loved on account of its barbaric jew¬ 
elled stem. 

“In the name of Allah, was a snail included in your 
parentage, or are your fingers as heavy as your wits ? 
You will fetch but a poor price with your clumsiness and 
shaven crown. Hasten, or by the Prophet’s beard I will 
lower your price still further by marking your shoulders 
with the whip.” 

Helen slowly crossed the room, carrying the tray with 
the goblet, filled to the brim with sweet, frothing drink, 
and offered it to the Arabian, who sat up suddenly, making 
a quick, savage gesture with both her hands. 

“Do 3 r ou think such arrogance suits a slave? Kneel!” 

The prisoner’s fate trembled in the balance as for one 
brief second Helen, consumed with a desire to fling the 
goblet in the beautiful, mocking face, grasped its jewelled 


283 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

stem; then, remembering that the victorious or disastrous 
ending of the attempt to escape depended entirely upon 
her, she knelt and, stirring the sherbet with an ivory 
spoon, offered the tray on uplifted hands. 

To keep her kneeling Zarah drank slowly, whilst Helen 
half closed her eyes under the agony of her suspense. 
There was no sign in her face of her terror when, with 
but a drain to drink, Zarah sniffed at the goblet, scowled 
and flung it to the farther end of the room, thereby drink¬ 
ing one drop too little of the drug. 

“Have you not yet learned how to mix so simple a 
drink as this?” she raved, inelegantly wiping her beauti¬ 
ful mouth with the back of her hand. “Were it not that 
my women taste all that you touch and replace all you 
have touched every hour, and likewise that none but my 
women approach you or have speech with you, I would 
swear by the Prophet that you had put something in my 
cup. Bring me coffee, hot and strong, in the big bowl. 
Hasten, lest I summon the black women to teach you the 
real meaning of speed.” 

Helen’s heart sank. 

She had no idea of the potency of the drug or the time 
required for it to take effect, but she knew the stimulating 
effect black coffee had on the Arabian, and how, once 
she had drunk a bowlful of it, she would pass a sleepless 
night, reading or smoking or roaming about the camp, 
paying surprise visits to the kennels and her people’s 
quarters. 

She spent long precious minutes in fanning the brazier, 
w r hich burned brightly behind a screen, casting fleeting 
glances towards the divan to see if the Arabian showed 
any sign of somnolence. 

Zarah sat cross-legged, looking through the doorway 
at the stars, and showing as much sign of sleep as an 
angry cat. She turned and frowned at Helen when she 
clattered various brass pots and pans, making a great 
to-do, so as to waste still more precious moments over 


284 ZARAH THE CRUEL 

the intricate process of brewing the sickly, sweet Arabian 
coffee. 

“Bring the coffee!” Zarah shouted suddenly, swinging 
her feet to the floor and half rising from the cushions. 

Helen placed the brass pot, the porcelain bowl, and a 
smaller bowl of scented water upon the silver tray, looked 
over her shoulder at the Arabian and caught her breath. 

Zarah yawned, widely, heavily. 

The whole future depended upon the next five minutes 
—her future, the future of the man she loved. 

Another few moments and Zarah the Cruel might be 
asleep. Yet what excuse could she make for wasting those 
precious moments ? Everything was ready on the tray ; it 
w r ould take but a moment to cross the floor, and another 
five, perhaps ten, for the strong, hot, black coffee to be 
drunk and to react against the drug, and then farewell 
to all hope of escape. 

“Must I come and fetch it myself?” 

Helen moved forward, carrying the tray. Zarah glared 
at her, and yawned until it seemed her scarlet mouth 
could not bear the strain. 

“The coffee,” she said slowly, and rubbed her eyes, just 
as Helen, with a sharp cry, twisted her foot sideways, 
pretended to recover her footing, and let fall the tray 
and its contents with a loud clatter to the floor. 

Zarah sprang to her feet with a shout of rage w r hich 
ended in a yawn, staggered forward a step or two, swung 
sideways and fell back across the divan, where she lay 
peacefully, sound asleep. 

Helen lay perfectly still, so as not to attract the 
Arabian’s attention in any way; then, assured that she 
slept soundly, gathered herself up and stole across to the 
divan. 

“Oh, Yussuf, if you were only here!” she said as she 
stood looking down at the sleeping girl, wondering what 
step she should take next; then turned to look out at the 
night sky. 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 285 

Outlined against the sky, Yussuf stood in the 
doorway. 

She ran to him and touched his arm, whereupon he 
smiled as best he could for the distortion of his mouth 
and put his hands to his forehead, lips and heart. 

“She sleeps, \ussuf, soundly. I gave her ten drops !” 

Helen whispered the words, though she might have 
safely shouted them aloud for all the effect they would 
have had on Zarah. 

“Does she lie at ease, Excellency? If not, stretch her 
forth as though she passed the night in natural sleep. 
Let nothing cause her fret and thereby hasten her 
waking.” 

Helen crossed to the divan and looked down at the merci¬ 
less girl who had no pity for man or beast. She lay full 
length in the exquisite raiment she had worn for the 
tournament, her face half hidden in her arm, smiling like 
a child in her sleep. Helen watched her for a moment, 
then drew a satin coverlet over the Arabian’s feet, glanced 
round the room, moved slowly round the walls blowing 
out the lamps which hung from silver sconces, and 
returned to Yussuf. 

“I will carry your Excellency down the steep unused 
path, for fear that some of those who wrestle with each 
other might see you. Come! I will lead you to where 
your lover waits, even I, blind Yussuf.” 

Helen put her hand in his and looked back at the 
woman who had tried her best to humble her to the dust 
and failed. She touched her curls and smiled involun¬ 
tarily at the thought that neither the daily round of 
menial tasks nor the threat of death had frightened her 
as had the threat to shave her head. 

“I shall never be able to thank you, Yussuf,” she said, 
as he lifted her into his arms and carried her across the 
broad ledge upon which the Holy Fathers had built the 
dwelling-place. 


286 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


“Put your arms about my neck, Excellency, for in times 
of stress must custom and thought of race vanish. I will 
hold you on my left arm; my right hand knoweth every 
jutting rock, my feet every stone upon this path. Shut 
your eyes, Excellency, for they say that one with vision 
would not dare to tread this road. We must hasten, for 
who knows if the tiger-cat will not waken ’neath the urging 
of her hate-filled mind? Your arm about my neck and 
your heart full of courage until the w T aning of the morning 
star, when you and your lover will be far upon the road 
to freedom and happiness.” 

Helen did not shut her eyes, and until the end of her 
life she never forgot the descent. 

Certain of every inch of the path, rendered as sure¬ 
footed as a goat through the blindness which had up¬ 
rooted the dread spectre of fear from his mind, feeling 
with his feet, clinging with his hand, climbing, scram¬ 
bling, dropping safely upon the narrowest foothold, 
Yussuf carried Helen safely by the hidden and almost 
unnegotiable path to where the dromedaries lay in the 
shadows. 

Just once he stopped to give the pre-arranged signal. 

“The Sit , Excellency,” he said briefly, as Trenchard 
sprang towards him and took Helen into his arms. 

“Helen! My beloved! You at last!” 

He let her slip to her feet and crushed her up against 
his heart whilst the Arabs busied themselves with the 
camels’ packs. 

“Dearest,” whispered Helen, as she lifted her radiant 
face to his, “I began to think I should never see you 
again.” 

“We must hasten, Excellencies. Life stretches before 
you full of hours of happiness; these moments are fraught 
with danger. ‘Mine Eyes’ and I will follow you or not, 
as wills Allah, the one and only God of mercy and com¬ 
passion. I will lead her Excellency’s camel across the 
hidden path, ‘Mine Eyes’ will lead yours, your Excellency; 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 287 

N amlah, desert born, will ride her own, wilt thou not, 
sister?’’ 

Namlah laughed softly. 

She was helping her son to tighten knots and to fasten 
the loads upon the camels’ backs still more securely. 

“Yea, brother, that will I. I would cross the desert 
on foot to escape from the claws of the tiger-cat. All 
is ready, Excellency. A water-skin each, and much bread 
and many luscious dates, coffee and the wherewithal to 
make many cups. A tent for the noonday heat. To the 
north-east, and then due north, his Excellency says, and 
may Allah guide our feet and thy feet, O blind brother, 
to liberty and peace!” 

Trenchard and Helen made one last effort to induce 
Yussuf and “His Eyes” to join them. 

“Now’s your chance, Yussuf. It seems so much like 
running away to leave you to face the row by yourself.” 

“Come w T ith us, Yussuf.” Helen laid her hand on the 
blind man’s arm as she spoke. “You and ‘Your Eyes.’ ” 
She laid her other hand on the dumb youth’s arm, stand¬ 
ing linked to them in a friendship that was to endure a 
lifetime. 

“Excellencies,” replied Yussuf, “before Allah I would 
rather pass my life in prison than miss the tiger-cat’s 
rage when she finds you gone. Behold, the calmness of 
the white people when in the midst of danger has won our 
hearts and will pass as history down the generations. Not 
by w-ord or sign have you shown fear or anger, thereby, 
with the mercy of Allah, winning your way to freedom. 
Nor,” he added with a smile, “do the w T hite people 
waste overmuch time in rejoicing or protestations of 
affection.” 

“Have a little patience, Yussuf,” said Helen, as she 
righted herself after having swayed backwards and for¬ 
wards and bent this way and that in answer to the move¬ 
ment of the camel as it lurched to its feet with consider¬ 
able lamentation and sounds of wrath. “Wait until we 


288 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


come out to Damascus to visit you, then we will all 
rejoice together, won’t we, Ra?” 

“Rather!” said Ralph Trenchard, as he leant over and 
took Helen’s hand and kissed it, then let it go as Yussuf 
led her camel forward, having found his direction by 
turning his face to the night wind as he touched the spear. 

“Not a word, Excellencies,” he said when the three 
camels stood in a line upon the narrow path, upon each 
side of which lay a terrible death. “The wind plays 
strange tricks with sound from this spot, carrying at times 
the spoken word from the quicksands to the rocks, which 
increase it a hundredfold, until the camp is filled with 
whispering. Allah grant that the dogs do not bark and 
waken the tiger-cat until dawn, and that my brothers 
cease not their games until I am seated once more without 
the empty hut.” 

Helen turned and smiled at her lover, and leant side¬ 
ways and waved her hand to the devoted body-woman, 
who, in her placidity, looked as though she were embark¬ 
ing upon a picnic instead of a dash for liberty across the 
desert. The mountains towered behind them, grim and 
menacing, the desert stretched, silvery and peaceful under 
the stars, the quicksands lay on each side of their hidden 
path, still and treacherous. 

Yussuf walked ahead, leading Helen’s camel, “His 
Eyes” followed, Namlah came last, looking as must have 
looked Ruth or Naomi or any other woman of the 
Scriptures. 

The great beasts, as they stepped off the hidden path 
on to the safety of the desert sands, were urged into line 
with Namlah between Helen and her lover. 

“Namlah will ride three paces in front, Excellenc}',” 
said Yussuf. “Ride at fullest speed until the first ray 
of the sun breaks through the clouds of night, keeping 
the great star behind the right shoulder; then guide your¬ 
self by the sun as I have instructed you, and may Allah 
have you and yours in His keeping. I and ‘Mine Ej’es’ 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 289 

will overtake you if it is the will of Allah, whose Prophet 
is Mohammed.” 

The camels moved forward slowly; then, gathering 
speed, sped across the desert. 

Yussuf and “His Eyes” waited at the beginning of the 
path until the faint sound made by the beasts’ huge feet 
upon the sand died away altogether, then turned and, 
Yussuf leading, retraced their steps across the hidden 
path. 

“Allah guide them, little brother, for behold, my heart 
is soft towards those white people of great courage. Go 
thou and pit thy strength against that of the half-caste 
lion, so that his suspicions are not aroused, whilst I sit 
here to await the awakening of Zarah the Beautiful.” 

He sat cross-legged before the door of the empty hut, 
from which, if he had had eyes, he could have seen the 
tombs of the Holy Fathers. He sat calmly, patiently, 
resigned to Fate, until, as the sky lightened way down in 
the east, a dog, then another, and then a many began to 
bark. 

They barked without ceasing, whilst the grooms stirred 
in their sleep and the voices and laughter of the men died 
down as they stopped to listen to the noise. 

Knowing that the barking of dogs never failed to 
waken Zarah, Yussuf raised his sightless face to the 
heavens and offered a prayer of thanksgiving. 

The hour of his revenge was at hand. 


CHAPTER XXII 


“Everyman—and his own care !”— Arabic Proverb. 

Zarah stretched her arms above her head, yawned, 
listened for a moment to the barking of the dogs, then, 
struck with a premonition of impending disaster, awoke 
to her surroundings, struggled to a sitting position, and 
stared up at the unlit lamps and round the room in 
amazement. 

Save for the faint light of the coming dawn, the place 
was in darkness and strangely still. 

Who had blown out the lights? Where was Helen? 
What was the meaning of the dogs’ unrest at this hour, 
when they usually slept? Why was she weighed down 
with such an oppressive drowsiness? 

She roused herself, swaying to her feet, stood for a 
moment bemused, then staggered forward and crashed into 
a great brass bowl filled with many fruits. It fell with 
a clatter, arousing her from the strange lethargy which 
seemed to cause the room to spin about her and to dull 
her active brain. 

She stood watching the oranges and pomegranates, 
figs, apricots and peaches roll this way and that across 
the marble floor, then called for Helen. 

Helen! 

She shouted the name savagely, under the whip of her 
premonition, shouted it until the vaulted roof rang with 
her cries, shouted it until the echoes gave back the call. 

Helen! Helen! Helen! a mocking voice seemed to 
shout back from the shadows. 

In a flash enlightenment came to her, and with it the 
blindest rage that ever entered woman’s heart. 

290 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


291 


There could be but one reason for the dark desertion 
of the room and for the unanswered call. In some way 
the girl she hated, the man she desired, had communicated 
with each other, had outwitted her. How? When? 
Where? Oh, of what avail to lose time in asking useless 
questions when, even at that moment, they might be on 
their way to freedom and love? She stood in the centre 
of the faintly lighted room, then laughed until the ugly 
sound beat against the walls. She laughed with sheer 
rage at the thought of how she, Zarah the Cruel, the 
most beautiful woman in Asia, the woman who had never 
been thwarted or foiled, had at last been circumvented 
by Helen. Helen Raynor, the fool English girl, the slow- 
witted, the dense, the hopelessly dull, as she had described 
her when holding her up to ridicule to her women slaves. 

Her slaves! 

In a moment her trend of thought changed, and with 
it, replacing even her rage, came a violent desire to re¬ 
venge herself on everyone who had connived at or partici¬ 
pated in the prisoners’ escape. 

Yussuf! Namlah! 

She seized the metal rod and smote the huge brass gong 
as the two names leapt to her mind. Her men were 
gathered together on the plateau, with Yussuf and the 
dumb boy whom he loved in their midst. She would 
summon the two who had been thorns in her flesh since 
the death of the Sheikh and wring a confession from them. 

Left by her father in her care! 

In the name of Allah what mattered a promise more 
or less when it had to do with those who had put humili¬ 
ation after humiliation upon her? She would see to it 
that they and the white people were rendered dumb and 
blind in death by the time she had wiped out all the insults 
they had heaped her with. 

Her women! 

They slept peacefully in their quarters with Namlah 
in their midst. She would summon them all and wring a 


292 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


confession from lier. She had treated the body-woman, 
who had shown such strong affection for the white girl, 
with a strange leniency, merely replacing her, upon the 
spies* report, by the surly negress who had so unac¬ 
countably disappeared upon the night when the dogs had 
rushed the hall. She should learn what awaited a slave 
and a prisoner who dared plot against the master. 

She smote the gong to awaken the entire camp and to 
summon her attendants, smote it without ceasing. 

Lost to all sense of reasoning through her overpower¬ 
ing rage, she flung herself upon the divan and sat 
looking out to the desert through the cleft in the moun¬ 
tains, planning her revenge upon them all. 

The Red Desert, the Empty Desert, the forcing-ground 
of hate, revenge, despair, the burial place of love and hope 
and life. 

The great waste places of the Arabian Peninsula, 
swept by the tribes of Ad, Tasim and Jadis, devastated 
by the hordes which inundated it in the early days when 
the Holy Fathers, in penance, built the very building in 
which the desert-born girl sat; ruled by African kings, 
allied to the Roman and Byzantine Empires, coveted, 
conquered, beaten, yet as ready to-day to rise in revolt 
against oppression and to hurl itself against the enemy 
as it was ready to fling itself victoriously against the 
mighty Roman generals. 

Immense tracts of sand across which, pursuing or 
pursued, passed those countless legions, leaving, save 
for the footprints of Solomon’s mighty Yeminite Queen 
and Mohammed, the greatest Prophet the world has 
known since the advent of the gentle Nazarene, but little 
mark upon the path of time; desolate plains under which 
those who, through the centuries, have laid its fair cities 
waste, sleep in death amongst the ruins and treasures and 
secrets of cities, kingdoms and dynasties of which the 
names alone remain; silent, mysterious oceans of sand 
above which, wheeling, calling, sailing on outstretched 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 293 

wing at dawn, at noon, at dusk, drift the vultures from 
north to south, from east to west, as they have drifted 
and called since the day every grain of the sands was 
numbered. 

Revengeful, relentless, restless, the Great Desert knows 
no peace nor rest nor shade. It sweeps flat that which 
it piled high but yesterday, and upon its surface, stretch¬ 
ing like an Eastern carpet, blows its sands to the height 
of hills, to sweep them flat again. It kills with thirst, 
it slays w r ith hunger and exhaustion; it leaves but little 
trace of those who dare to pass its desolate boundaries. 
Bones of fugitives, of the hapless, the luckless, bones of 
birds and beasts, covered feet deep with sand at dawn, 
uncovered by the dread shelook to dance to the blowing 
of its scorching breath at noon, mark out a path across 
its desolation under the star-strewn, peaceful sky. High¬ 
born and low-caste, criminal and holy man, friend and 
enemy, there is nothing to tell who they were in life nor 
in what manner death came to them. Vultures follow 
jackal and hyena; settle for a while and rise again to 
drift from north to south, from east to west; the wind 
of chance w^afts the tattered, blood-stained kerchief across 
the desert to the feet of the holy man who has watched 
it, the only thing to move, dancing this way and that 
across the plain towards him; he ties it as a pennant to 
his staff and continues, with a prayer for the soul of the 
dead, upon his pilgrimage; the Bedouin, starving upon a 
handful of stringy sihanee dates and a cup of brackish 
water, searches amongst the bones and offers the desert 
victim’s purse and amulets and weapons in exchange or 
sale to those he may encounter upon his journey to the 
nearest oasis. 

A fitting place indeed in which to hide all trace of the 
Arabian’s vengeance upon the white people. Let them fly 
for their lives, they would but leave their bodies to the 
vultures and the wind and the starving Bedouin, when 
her men had done with them. 


294 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


Her men! 

Since the sinking of the last moon her spies had brought 
reports of discontent amongst them. They had become 
restless and rebellious under the inactivity she imposed 
upon them during her fleeting but violent obsession for 
the white man. 

Within the hour she would once more lead them across 
the sands under the light of the dying night and the com¬ 
ing dawn. With her they should hunt the fugitives down, 
and with spear or rifle wipe out the cause of their unrest 
and anger. 

Born of the desert, bred in its scorching heat, Zarah 
made one with it in her relentless cruelty. In it she had 
found her joy and, what counted more to her than all, 
her greatest triumphs with her men. Through it love, the 
love which is passion, the only love of which she was 
capable, had come to her; in it, in years to come, death 
would find her. 

Death! 

She laughed aloud as she listened to the sound of her 
people calling to each other as they hastened from their 
quarters to obey her summons. 

Death would come, as it must come to all, but not 
until she had repaired the mistake she had made in en¬ 
deavouring to place the white man at the head of her 
small but turbulent kingdom; not until she had ruled 
for many years; not until she had wiped the memory of 
the white people who had tricked her from the minds 
of her subjects, whom she would link closer still by her 
union with one of themselves. 

With all the instability and inconstancy of the Arab 
blood in her veins her passion for the white man passed, 
burned out in the fire of the wrath that consumed her. 

Let the white people die. Let the slight ripple they 
had made upon the sea of her exuberant, triumphant 
life be wiped out, so that peace might once more reign in 
the Sanctuary. 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


295 


Death! 

With her plan of revenge in her mind she looked across 
at her throwing spears hanging upon the wall, then 
laughed as she caught sight of herself in one of the many 
long mirrors her intense vanity had caused her to place 
about the room. 

As she crossed the floor she made the gesture with her 
fingers, used by the superstitious all the world over, 
against the thought of death which filled her mind, then 
took her favourite spear from the wall. Damascus steel, 
inlaid with gold, with razor edges to the slender, needle- 
pointed blade. She smiled as the thought of the day, 
those years ago, when with it she had transfixed the grey¬ 
hound accepted as a gift by her father’s guest. 

“Death!” she cried, as she stood, a magnificent figure 
of youth, with the spear raised and poised for throwing. 
“Nay, revenge upon those who try to humiliate me. I will 
gather my men together and will promise gold, horses, 
women, what they will, to those who overtake and bring 
back to me, alive or dead, the prisoners who have escaped. 
Love! I in love with any man, be he white or black or of 
mixed blood! Nay, by the beard of the Prophet I love 
naught but power. Let them flee into the desert, even 
until the sun is risen, so that Helen R-raynor-r’s counte¬ 
nance be blistered and as roundly swelled as yon knob of 
wood, the which, to see if my hand hath not lost its cun¬ 
ning, I will pierce with the spear.” 

She ran back a space, caught her foot in a rug, stag¬ 
gered, and, in an effort to recover her balance, involun¬ 
tarily flung the spear. 

She stood for a moment petrified with horror, then 
screamed and screamed until the place rang. 

Thrown off her balance, she had flung the spear straight 
at the mirror. As she stood it transfixed her reflection 
through the heart. 

Hundreds of torches flared below, where her men stood 
looking up, watching the women as, with exclamations 


296 ZARAH THE CRUEL 

of fear, they ran to answer the dreaded summons of 
the gong. 

“By the beard,” said Bowlegs to Yussuf’s Eyes, “some¬ 
thing is amiss.” 

A shout went up as Zarah appeared, wrapped in her 
great riding cloak, spear in hand. “She leads us to 
battle, little brother who cannot speak.” Bowlegs turned, 
laughing as he spoke, and stared in amazement. The dumb 
youth was not there, but in his place towered the gigantic 
Nubian. 

“Verily to battle or the hunt, brother,” said Al-Asad. 
“Battle methinks, for of a truth the woman I love seems 
in no patient mood. Ha! canst hear? She calleth for 
Namlah! Ha! she smite^ the Abyssinian across the 
mouth. The tiger-cat! Yet do I love her the more for 
her cruelty. Her small hand is like a flower petal blown 
against the rock when, in her child-like wrath, she smites 
me. I could pinch the breath from her throat, which is 
like unto the jewelled column in yon hall, ’tw r ixt thumb 
and finger, yet love I to anger her so that her little hand 
shall smite me. Ha! Harken! She calleth for the blind 
one, for Yussuf. Look, brother! Is she not as the wind 
from the south in her wrath?” 

Zarah faced her terrified women slaves, amongst w r hom 
Namlah was not to be found. 

“Search for the white woman, you black dogs!” She 
smote the Abyssinian across the face as she spoke. “Find 
her and bring her to me. Namlah w r ill you find with her. 
Search, all of 3 7 ou, and hasten, lest I drive you down to 
the sands of death.” The women turned and fled down 
the steps, touching their amulets, praying to Allah, 
whispering the one to the other. 

“Whither, my heart’s delight? Whither in such haste, 
with thy beautiful countenance distraught with fear?” 

Bowlegs’ second wife tore herself from his detaining 
grasp and ran as fast as her weight would allow her, 
and literally for her life. “We run in search of the white 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


297 


woman, who is not to be found, and Namlah, who-” 

The rest of her words were lost as she disappeared in the 
throng of her panting sisters. 

“Oh! ho!” said Bowlegs. “Now find we the kernel in 
the nut. The beautiful Zarah calleth for Yussuf.” He 
turned and scanned the band of laughing, interested men. 
“Behold are the blind and the dumb ones not to be seen. 
Let me hide in thy shadowy O Lion, lest thy mate-to-be 
scratches out mine eyes as she passes.” 

Al-Asad took no notice. He stood watching the beau¬ 
tiful Arabian as she ran down the steps. The men made 
a passage for her, and closed in behind and around her 
as she passed between them, w r rapped in her riding cloak. 

“Yussuf!” she said sharply. “Where is he? Thou 
w r ho standeth above thy fellows, seeth thou him?” She 
laid her hand on Al-Asad’s arm as she spoke and looked 
up into his eyes, which w r ere alight with love. “Is he 
here ?” 

The wind blew her cloak against him. Starving for 
love, he caught it and held it crushed in his hand, and 
stood looking down at her, his eyes full of worship, 
whilst the men, intuitive as are all Orientals, watched the 
little scene, pressing close upon each other. 

“Her veritable mate,” w r hispered one. “Seeth thou that 
his right hand holds her cloak?” 

“Yea! I bear no malice towards the white man, but 
’twere well to send him with the white woman back to the 
country where the white race is bred,” answered the 
Patriarch. 

“Seest thou Yussuf?” 

“Yussuf guards the white man, O Zarah!” said Al-Asad 
slowdy. 

“Bring him and the white man. Hasten, thou-” 

She pointed with her spear at a youngster, who, terrified, 
turned and ran towards the men’s quarters. 

“My amulet for a death in battle, against thine for 
many sons amongst thy children,” whispered the 




298 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


Patriarch, “that the lad finds neither the blind one, nor 
the dumb one, nor the white man?” 

The gamblers slipped their amulets from about their 
necks. 

“Thinkest thou that they have escaped, O Father?” 

“Nay, that I know not, but the bitch that so hateth 
our woman ruler turned from her meat and howled thrice 
at the moon! Naught but death can follow the sign! 
From fear of disaster amongst the dogs, she has been 
separated from her companions and placed by herself 
for the night in the small kennel amongst the rocks.” 

“ Ai , At!” whispered his companion, spreading his fingers 
against disaster. “Behold! the lad returneth with a face 
like troubled waters.” 

The lad flung himself at Zarah’s feet, speechless from 
terror. 

“Speak! Where are they?” 

Zarah kicked him as he lay, and turned and half raised 
her spear in the direction from which had come a mur¬ 
muring. 

“The dwelling of the white man is empty, O mistress! 
Neither is the blind one nor the dumbaone to be found 
for the searching.” 

“Make a way for yon black dog!” 

Zarah’s voice, high pitched in fury, rose above the 
men’s. They pushed each other back as the gigantic 
negress came running lightly, and smote her playfully 
upon her broad shoulders as she passed amongst them, up 
to where her mistress and the Nubian stood. Almost as 
tall as Al-Asad, she made a superb picture as she stood, 
thoroughbred and perfect in form, beside the two half- 
castes. Arrogant in her breeding, aware of the rebellion 
seething in the camp, she eyed them insolently as she 
revenged herself for the blows her mistress had rained 
upon her since she had been bought in the slave market. 

“Thy prisoners have escaped, O Zarah!” she said slowly, 
contemptuously. “The white man has fled with the white 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


299 


woman. Black stallion with black mare, white stallion 
with white mare, and Allah’s curse upon the foal of differ¬ 
ent colouring.” 

She turned her back upon the Arabian, and walked 
away with the insolent gait of the thoroughbred negro. 

Speechless with rage, Zarah raised her spear, then, in a 
flash, realized that she no longer had the power to move 
her men to the madness of hate or to the lust of battle. 
They stood between her and the negress, but she kept 
her spear raised as she made a mighty effort to regain 
her hold over them. She stepped back and shouted the 
battle-cry with which she had been wont to gather the 
men for a foray into the desert or about her in battle. 
The words were echoed a thousand times from the moun¬ 
tains, but not from one throat of the men about her; 
she called aloud her promise of horses, gold or women 
as a reward for the capture of the prisoners; she drove 
a way between the men until she stood upon the outer edge 
of the throng, then once more she shouted the battle-cry, 
until the women, who had been watching, ran and hid 
amongst the rocks and some of the younger men felt 
stealthily for their knives. 

“Is there not one among you who dare face the white 
man?” 

A voice from the centre of the throng quoted an Arab 
proverb, a voice with a mocking note in its clear tones: 

“ ‘It is written upon the cucumber leaf,’ O Zarah, ‘that 
from a house from which thou eatest thou shalt not pray 
for its destruction.’ ” 

The Patriarch, with Bowlegs at his side, pushed his 
way to the front. “The white man, my daughter, we will 
not for master,” he said, “but for his patience and his 
strength, yea! and his love for his own woman, we love 
him as a brother. Behold has he lived and eaten like a 
dog in yon hut and worked amongst us, to teach us his 
tricks of skill, with no word of complaint upon his lips. 
Nay! let him be, with his own woman. Their ways are 


300 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


not our ways, and their lives are in the keeping of Allah 
the one and only God. Likewise let the friend of thy 
father with his dumb friend be gone upon their own busi¬ 
ness. They irk the Sanctuary with their infirmities, as 
does the busy Namlah with her wailings for her lost son.” 

But Zarah had long since passed the stage of sane 
reasoning. She was white with fury as she faced these 
men, who would not move hand or foot to help her in her 
need and looked at her with laughter in the depths of 
their mocking eyes. 

“Thou!” 

Her voice trembled with rage as she looked across to 
Al-Asad, who stood surrounded by men. 

He shook his head. 

“Thou art my woman!” he said simply, “and if I cannot 
have thee, thinkest thou that I would strive to bring back 
one thou lovest and who has escaped?” 

“Thou fool! Bring him back dead, slung across thy 
shoulders-” 

“Nay! I love him as a brother, let him go!” 

“Then will I bring him back myself!” 

The men looked at each other as she laughed shrilly 
and turned and ran across the plateau towards the stables, 
and gripped the Nubian as he made a movement to follow 
her. 

“Let her be,” said the Patriach. “She but makes mock 
of thee. What can a woman armed with a spear do 
against those who are fully armed? She will hide amongst 
the rocks until hunger drives her forth, then will we wed 
her to thee, O brother, or carry her to the sands of death, 
for we tire of her moods and w T ould find her a master.” 

But Zarah was in no vein for trickery. 

Desperation had swept her completely off her course 
towards the whirlpool of impulsiveness, into which the 
hot-headed flounder, to struggle, sink and drown. 

A moment’s thought, a whole-hearted surrender to her 
subjects’ wishes, a joke at her own expense, a laugh, and 



ZARAH THE CRUEL 


301 


she might even then have won back her hold upon the men 
who, as all Arabs, were swayed by the emotions of the 
moment and as easily placated as they were easily roused. 

Her love had passed; the mockery in her men’s eyes, 
the insolence in the black slave’s words, signalled her de¬ 
feat ; the future, bereft of power, loomed cold and barren, 
yet, in the smart of the wound dealt her colossal vanity, 
she gave no thought to aught but swift, sure revenge 
upon those who had been the chief cause of her downfall. 

The grooms of the stables standing half-way down the 
slight incline, devoured by curiosity, fled at sight of her, 
and rushed to their quarters at the back of the buildings. 

She paid no attention. 

Time pressed, and she required but a halter-rope with 
which to guide Lulah, the fastest mare in all Arabia, 
across the desert. There was no necessity for question¬ 
ing; the fresh tracks of the camels or horses ridden by 
the fugitives would show plainly on the sand in the light 
of the coming day. In the agony of her humiliation she 
gave no thought to weapons; all she wanted was to find 
the w T hite man with his woman, to get within spear range, 
and then to leave the rest to Allah the Merciful and Com¬ 
passionate. 

Terrified at the gleam of the white cloak, Lulah backed 
across the loose box, then lashed out until it seemed she 
must break the partition with her dainty, unshod hoofs. 
Her beautiful, soft eyes rolled as she backed into the 
corner, and she jerked her head, lifting Zarah from the 
ground, when the Arabian caught her by the halter-rope; 
she stood quite still for a moment, snuffing at the cloak, 
then suddenly rushed for the open door and bolted, slip¬ 
ping, sliding, with the girl running at her side, down the 
passage between the stalls, through the outer door, and 
out on to the broad ledge upon which the stables had been 
built. 

She reared when Zarah vaulted to her back, then, ex¬ 
hilarated by the dawn and under the pressure of the 


302 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


girl’s knees, danced sideways towards the edge, whilst 
the men, who watched the splendid picture, held Al-Asad 
forcibly, and Yussuf’s Eyes peeping from behind the rock 
which hid them, tapped an answer to the blind man’s 
question. 

The black mare reared until struck between the ears, 
when she crashed to her feet, slipped them over the edge, 
tried to regain her foothold, then, under her own impetus 
and the pressure of the girl’s knees, who was too savagely 
impatient to pull the beautiful beast back to the made 
track, slithered like a goat down the path from the stables 
to where it joined the upward track which led to the cleft. 

Zarah took her up the steep incline at a terrific rush, 
and pulled her at the top until she reared again. For 
one instant they stood sharply outlined against the night 
sky in which the morning breeze blew out the stars one 
by one, then vanished, as the battle-cry, mocking, chal¬ 
lenging, rang through the air dow r n to the men standing 
close together upon the plateau. 

“His Eyes,” who watched, turned and tapped a message 
upon his blind friend’s arm. 

“To the kennels?” answered Yussuf. “Yea, verily will 
we hasten whilst our brothers and sisters gossip of the 
flight. Zarah the Merciful will have no time in which to 
spy the swiftest dromedary in Arabia hidden behind the 
rocks.” He raised his right hand as he spoke. “By the 
honour of the Arab, when I have finished with her wdio 
plucked the light from my eyes, behold will her laughter 
be ‘as the laughter of the nut when cracked between two 
stones’!” 

He laughed savagely as he quoted the proverb, staring 
down at the boy he could not see, then took his hand and, 
without faltering, passed quickly along a path he had 
made for himself between the rocks up to the kennels, 
deserted for the moment by the grooms, who had rushed 
to talk over the doings of the past hour with the dis¬ 
tracted grooms of the stables. 


303 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 

“Allah keep her tongue still !” whispered Yussuf as 
“His Eyes” opened the door of the isolated kennel amongst 
the rocks and softly whistled the bitch. Whimpering 
with delight, the beautiful creature flung herself upon 
the men whom she had so often followed across the desert. 
She loved them. They had petted her when in disgrace, 
and had fed her with bones between the regulation and 
none too satisfying meals. Yussuf’s hour of revenge had 
struck. Vengeance for the loss of his eyes, for the mutila¬ 
tion of his once handsome face, for the humiliations which 
had deftly been heaped upon him throughout the years 
by the woman who had failed to recognize the intensity of 
his hate for her. 

For just such a moment had he longed and prayed, 
for just such a moment had he fostered the hate of the 
bitch, who, only on account of her unblemished pedigree 
and for the gentleness of her ways to all but the Arabian, 
had not been destroyed long since. For years she had 
followed the scent of one of the Arabian’s discarded san¬ 
dals which “His Eyes” had trailed upon a string across 
the desert, mile upon mile, to be rewarded at the end 
by some dainty fastened to a staff, thrust into the sand, 
for which she had been taught to leap and fight. 

She knew the way down the narrow path to the spear 
stuck fast between the two rocks, and had never forgotten 
the severe lessons which had taught her to keep silent 
until well out in the desert; she whimpered softly and 
thrust her muzzle into Yussuf’s hand as he passed quickly 
to the rock which marked the beginning of the path lead¬ 
ing up to the cleft. 

“They gamble, thou sayest, ‘Mine Eyes,’ seated upon 
the ground, with the Lion, a prisoner, in their midst. 
Then bending low will we make our way to the cleft, pray¬ 
ing to Allah to bind their eyes to the dice until we can 
be no longer seen. How light is it? As light as the 
feathers upon a pigeon’s breast? Then must we hasten!” 

Bent double, they crept up the steep path to the cleft, 


304 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


through which Yussuf passed, just as the first sunbeam 
shot from behind the edge of the world, and a great shout 
rang out from the plateau. 

Al-Asad, chafing against the restraint put upon him 
and longing for the woman he loved, turned to look up 
at the cleft through which she must pass upon her return. 

Outlined against the sky he saw the disappearing figure 
of the blind man, whom he knew hated the woman he loved 
with a bitterness beyond description; upon the near side 
he saw, waiting to pass, Yussuf’s Eyes, holding the bitch 
who hated the Arabian with a hatred which equalled that 
of the blind man. 

The men leapt to their feet at Al-Asad’s cry and flung 
themselves upon him, then fell back when, making a bugle 
of his slender hands, he sent the battle-cry ringing over 
the mountain tops out to the desert. 

At the sight of the bitch he had divined the revenge 
Yussuf the blind had planned; he sent the battle-cry to 
reach the woman he loved, so that she should know that 
help was coming. 

Again and again he called, until the birds rose twitter¬ 
ing and screaming in flocks and flew towards the sunrise, 
whilst Yussuf whistled to the bitch trotting at the drome¬ 
dary’s heels, as the great beast, under the urging of the 
dumb youth, passed across the hidden path at a desperate, 
dangerous speed. 

The women rushed from their quarters at the sound 
of the battle-cry, which invariably heralded the death of 
one or more of their menfolk, and beat their breasts as 
they watched the men, headed by the Nubian, running 
towards the stables. 

“At! At! AH” 

The lamentation rose to high heaven as they watched 
the Nubian take his stallion at a terrific pace down the 
short cut to the path. They screamed when the magnifi¬ 
cent beast fell and rolled to the bottom, where he scram¬ 
bled to his feet and limped forward a foot or so, whilst 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


305 


Al-Asad, without hesitating, sped to meet the men as they 
tore like the whirlwind down the made track. He caught 
the rope-halter of one who outdistanced the rest, and, 
putting out all his almost superhuman strength, stopped 
the horse dead in its tracks and hurled it back on its 
haunches. Clinging to the mane with his left hand, he 
lifted the rider with his right, flung him to the ground, 
bent and snatched the spear from his hand, and ran at the 
stallion’s side up to the end of the path, where he vaulted 
across its back and disappeared through the cleft with 
a challenging cry. 

Afraid of the Arab who lay stunned across their path, 
the foremost horses stopped dead in their headlong career, 
bringing the others up against them in a struggling mass, 
so that much time was lost as the men tried to straighten 
out the confusion made by the horses jamming on the 
narrow path as each struggled to free itself from its 
neighbour, whilst they slipped and reared and fell. 

The rim of the sun had just shown above the horizon; 
the Nubian was a speck in the far distance; of Yussuf 
and “His Eyes” and the Arabian there was no sign in 
the shadows which still shrouded the vast ocean of sand, 
when, headed by the Patriarch, with much shouting and 
firing of rifles, the whole band, riding at full speed, swept 
across the deserj. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


“Remove the gates of thy stable to another side/* 

—Arabic Proverb. 


An ominous dawning. 

Misty, silvery shadows fleeing before the coming light 
left no mark upon the Crimson Desert, which stretched 
to the east and west a desolate unbroken plain, to the 
north and south in motionless, blood-red waves of sand. 
Sunrays, yellow, orange, red, spread like gigantic search¬ 
lights across the sky from behind a mass of clouds which 
the west wind had driven eastward and piled low down 
upon the horizon. 

Copper-coloured masses against a background of green 
and rose and dun, concealing the end or the beginning of 
an arch of clouds, which flared, a signal of disaster, a 
pennant of death, blood-red, high across the sapphire 
firmament, where one great star still defied its enemy— 
the dawn. 

Over the empty plain, under the ominous arc, straight 
towards the stupendous sunrise fled the three camels, 
leaving a dead-black trail stretching back as far as eye 
could see. 

Namlah the body-woman glanced over her shoulder at 
the Morning Star and touched the amulet of good luck 
which hung about her neck. She looked round at the 
ill-omened sky and back over the miles across which the 
huge beasts had raced, at the almost incredible speed to 
which the camel can attain when urged to its greatest 
effort. Scarcely a word had the riders said since the sky 
had lightened when, wondering if the alarm had been given 
in the camp, they had turned to see if Yussuf overtook 
or if Zarah pursued them through the misty, silvery 
shadows. 

Ralph and Helen rode side by side, their dromedaries 

306 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


307 


almost touching, as they raced death for their lives, their 
liberty, their love. Namlah, the desert born, rode ahead, 
steering her course unerringly by the great star. 

She glanced back at Helen’s face, showing death white 
in the shadows of the passing night and distressed at the 
signs of a great fatigue, anxious to advise, to help, touched 
her camel upon the right shoulder, so that it turned to 
the right in a wide circle, whilst its companions, ignoring 
or totally unconscious of their leader’s- change of route, 
and utterly lacking in imagination, reasoning power or 
sense of any kind, forged ahead on a non-stop run. 

Once more her keen eyes swept the vast plain which 
lay behind and across which, like a band of jet on damask 
cloth, showed the path made by the camels in their flight. 
She made no sound as she shaded her eyes and stared 
and stared into the far distance, but touched the amulet 
for good luck which hung at her own neck and, leaning 
far forward, touched the amulet which had been fastened 
in a tuft of hair on the camel’s left shoulder, thereby 
guaranteeing its safe arrival at the journey’s end. 

“ ‘O thou who troublest thyself about the care of others, 
to whom hast thou left thine own cares ?’ ” She muttered 
the proverb, then prayed to Allah as she smote the camel 
so that it finished the half circle and formed up with its 
companions, which utterly ignored its return. 

“What is it, Namlah?” 

Helen leant sideways as she spoke to the body-servant, 
in whose eyes she had seen the light of a great fear, then 
turned and looked back in the direction in which the woman 
pointed. She turned to her lover and pointed back along 
the path by which they had come, to where, hardly dis¬ 
cernible and as a mere speck in the far distance, some¬ 
thing moved. 

“We’re followed, Ra!” she cried, leaning towards him 

and stretching out her hand. 

“I know we are, sweetheart. I’ve known it for some 
time. Let’s hope it’s Yussuf.” He smiled at Namlah 
and shouted across to her. “We’ll put up a good fight. 


308 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


little sister, if they overtake us, and I swear they shall 
never take you two women alive.” 

“ Kismet! Excellency,” cried Namlah. “Perchance ’tis 
the blind one riding to join us, though verily there is 
but Lulah who could overtake these three beasts, the 
swiftest in Njed, and the black mare Yussuf does not 
ride. I pray thee let me have speech with Zarah if ’tis 
she, before death claims either the one or the other of 
us, likewise, if so be it is the will of Allah, allow me to 
approach the tyrant.” 

She spat as she made her request, and guided her camel 
close to Helen’s and prayed to Allah, with frequent inter¬ 
ludes of cursing, as they fled like the wind towards the 
spot whence they would turn due north and, if Allah the 
Merciful answered the prayers of the body-woman, would 
overtake a caravan journeying towards Oman or Hareek. 

“ ’Tis the birds of prey, Excellency,” she said later, 
“calling as they ever call at dawn. Perchance from the 
heavens the eagles and the vultures spy food w T ith which 
to break their fast.” 

Helen looked up at the sky, across which drifted and 
wheeled vultures, eagles, hawks, and shook her head and 
smiled at the dusky little woman who lied to allay her 
fears. 

“Na}^! Namlah, it is a voice, it is—listen!” 

Faintly but clearly the cry came to them upon the 
morning wind. Helen looked at her lover, and Namlah 
bent and touched the amulet upon the camel’s shoulder 
so as to hide her eyes. The battle-cry, derisive, challeng¬ 
ing, even at a great distance, left no doubt as to who 
pursued them. 

But Namlah was of the desert, with the eyes of a hawk 
and the tenacity of those whose daily life is one long fight 
against the greatest odds. She shaded her eyes suddenly 
and stared ahead. She pointed and laughed and kicked 
her camel vigorously. 

But there was no sign of living thing in all the desert 
to Ralph and Helen when they looked to where she pointed. 


309 


ZAHAH THE CRUEL 

“I see nothing, Namlah.” 

“\onder, Excellency ! See you not a band of men 
moving many, many miles away. Allah! their backs are 
towards us. They go from us.” She turned in her saddle 
and shook her fist at the speck in the far distance, then 
put her hand to her ear. “Allah! ’tis verily a horse! 
Faster! Faster! Excellencies, urge the camels, they but 
crawl, urge them, for in yon band of men, be they robbers 
or starving Bedouins, lies our salvation.” 

Infinitesimal spots upon the desert, which, ridged and 
wrinkled, lay like the outstretched hand of Fate, they 
urged the dromedaries until they fled to outstrip the 
wind, under the sky of violent colouring. 

“Allah! open their eyes that they see us! Open their 
ears that they hear us ! Excellency! Excellency ! is there 
no w r ay by which to turn their heads towards us!” Her 
words were lost in the rush of the tremendous speed, 
but Helen, understanding the expressive gestures, turned 
and shouted to her lover. 

The camels paid no heed when the desert rang with 
the double report of Trenchard’s revolver, but Abdul, 
who journeyed in the company of the Bedouins who had 
succoured him, in the hope of learning news of his white 
master in Hareek, turned in his saddle and looked back, 
whilst Zarah, oblivious of the strain she was putting upon 
the mare, shouted the battle-cry derisively when the firing 
shattered the desert stillness and drove the beautiful crea¬ 
ture at full speed over the sands, urging her with needle- 
pointed spear. 

Nor did she look back, else might she have seen Fate 
pressing hard upon her heels. 

* * * * * 

“On the day of victory no fatigue is felt” 

—Arabic Proverb. 

Like a darker shadow amongst the shadows thrown upon 
the desert from the ill-omened sky, Radi the bitch, the 


310 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


swiftest greyhound whelped in Hasa, loped alongside the 
dromedary ridden by Yussuf, with “His Eyes,” pillion- 
wise, behind him. She barely left a mark upon the sands 
so lightly did she run, perplexed, upon a track which 
held but the common scent of horse and camel. True, 
she ran in the wake of Lulah, her stable friend, but of 
enemy there was no trace; therefore of what avail to 
spend her strength in chasing shadows by the light of 
the rising sun? 

“His Eyes” frowned when she broke away, and like an 
arrow from a bow set off hard upon the scent of something 
which had crossed the path after Lulah the mare. 

“She has no interest, brother.” He tapped his message 
upon the blind man’s shoulder. “Even now she turns 
to follow the scent of some small beast of no account. 
Give me the sandal of Zarah the Cruel, so that she holds 

in her fine nose the scent of the woman of whom as vet 

•/ 

we see no sign, but whom we hunt to the death.” 

Yussuf sent a long, low call ringing across the sands, 
and Radi, with every muscle in her gaunt body trained 
to a hair, without checking her speed, spun round upon 
her hind feet and tore back in answer to it. She ran at 
an angle to overtake the black dromedary, whose price 
was above that of many rubies, and recognizing the object 
dangled just out of reach, leapt at the sandal, missing it 
by an inch; then, as trained to do, on touching the ground 
turned in a circle to the right and at the top of her ter¬ 
rific speed, still at an angle, tore towards the dromedary 
and launched herself straight upon its back. Catching 
her by the throat, the dumb youth held her back, whilst, 
with claws clinging to the tufts of hair upon the drome¬ 
dary’s haunches, the bitch fought to reach the sandal, 
the scent of which drove her to a veritable madness of 
hate and filled her with a lust to kill. She had it between 
her teeth when firing suddenly shattered the desert still¬ 
ness, and she fought like a fury to keep it, until “His 
Eyes,” putting out all his strength, hurled her to the 
ground and, clasping Yussuf round the waist, leaned 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


311 


far sideways and stared ahead. In his excitement he 
snatched the milijan from the blind man’s hand and, 
leaning backward, smote the dromedary upon the fleshy 
part of its hind leg above the knee, the tenderest spot 
of its tough anatomy, so that with a scream of rage it 
increased its pace seemingly a hundredfold and tore like 
a hurricane of wrath upon the path, at the far end of 
which “His Eyes” at last discerned a moving figure. 

“Bism ’ allah /” yelled Yussuf, answering the message 
tapped upon his shoulder. “Allah the Merciful delivereth 
the tyrant into our hands. The mare faileth, sayeth thou; 
the marks of her hoofs show ever deeper in the sand. 
Whence came the firing? From Zarah the Cruel or from 
our white brother who fleeth with the women before her 
vengeance? Nay! Nay! Knowest thou so little? Can’st 
not discern the difference ’twixt a pistol and a rifle? 
Allah strike her hand so that it is useless, and strike the 
mare dead so that the woman falls to the hound, who hates 
her even as I hate her in my blindness.” 

He leaned down and called to the greyhound, exciting 
her with words as he pointed ahead, until, sensing an 
enemy at last, she shot in front of the dromedary. Then, 
sitting erect, he lifted his mutilated face to the flaming 
heavens and chanted verses from the Koran to the honour 
of Allah the one and only God, Who delivered the enemy 
into his hands: 

“Flight shall not profit you if ye fly from death or 
from slaughter, and if it would, yet shall ye not enjoy 
this world but a little!” 

“Who is he who shall defend you against God, if He 
is pleased to bring evil on you?” 

“0 Lord, give her the double of our punishment; and 
curse her with a heavy curse!” 

The sonorous words range out on the stillness, barely 
broken by the padding of the dromedary’s cushioned 
feet upon the sand, then he stopped suddenly, alert, 
apprehensive. 


312 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


His hearing, sharpened by his blindness, had caught 
the sound of the drumming of a horse’s hoofs upon the 
sand many miles behind. 

“Look once more behind, little brother, methought 
’twould not be long before her lover rode in pursuit. Ha! 
thou seest one riding like a leaf before the wind. By the 
beard! ’tis the Lion riding to find his mate! Allah smite 
that which he bestrides so that no harm befalls him.” 
He turned round in the saddle and stared back along the 
path he could not see. “Seest thou aught else behind the 
Lion, little brother? Far behind? Thou seest naught! 
Yet is there a sound of thunder in mine ears, even the 
sound of the hoofs of many horses tearing like the hur¬ 
ricane towards us.” 

He listened for a moment, then turned again and stared 
unseeingly in front towards the figure of the woman who 
had blinded him. He smiled as best he could for the distor¬ 
tion of his mouth and threw back his head. 

Zarah looked back, at last, as the challenge of the 
battle-cry came to her on the wind, and, recognizing 
that speed alone would save her from the death which 
hunted her down, drove her spear into the mare’s 
hindquarters. 

The exhausted beast, ridden without mercy, her satiny 
coat dripping, her chest asmother with foam, bounded 
forward under the agony of the goad, crossed her feet, 
stumbled, flinging Zarah over her head as she crashed 
to her knees, then, up before the Arabian could rise, 
turned and fled into the desert towards the east, where 
the sun showed above the clouds. 

* * * * * 

“One hour for tliy love, one hour for thy Lord/ 9 

—Arabic Proverb. 

A mighty picture made Al-Asad and the stallion as they 
rode in the race to outstrip death. To aid the magnifi- 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


31S 


cent beast as it tore across the plain the Nubian lay close 
to its satin neck, guiding 1 with knees and hand, coaxing 
and urging with his voice as it fled ventre a terre , silken 
mane and tail flying like banners in the wind. 

There was naught but vision to tell him if he gained 
upon the dog or not, and even in that he dare not put his 
trust. For how was he to tell if the figures before him, 
the camel with its two riders, the dog ahead, the girl upon 
the black mare still farther off, and the three camels, 
mere dots upon the horizon, became gradually clearer 
because the stallion lessened the distance between itself 
and them or because the light made all things clearer as 
the sun rose from behind the clouds? 

He did not count Yussuf nor the dumb youth in the 
race for Zarah’s life. A great brotherly love existed 
between them, protecting them from harm one from the 
other; nor did he blame the blind man for taking his 
revenge by setting the bitch to hunt the girl down. 

In his wild heart and simple mind love, hate and re¬ 
venge were inextricably interwoven in the web of life, 
circumstance alone deciding which should triumph in the 
end. 

He would overtake them easily and pass them with a 
friendly shout, as he rapidly lessened the distance which 
separated him from love and freedom. 

His plan was of the simplest. 

He would lift the woman he loved into his arms and 
ride away with her to some distant part of the desert. 
There he would gather the fiercest outlaws to him, and 
with them raid the country until his name should become 
a byword in the land, whilst his riches should accumulate 
so that his woman’s happiness should be great. He smiled 
as he rode with the dreams in his heart and his eyes upon 
the greyhound and the spear loose in his hand. 

He knew that the Bedouins, who had seen Radi hunting 
across the desert, had come to swear by her endurance 
and resistance, and to boast to the stranger within the 


314 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


land of how she hunted the night through without water 
or food or rest. 

Likewise she held an unbroken record. 

She had never failed to kill. 

He looked down at Lulah’s hoof-prints and called 
to the stallion as he caressed the glossy neck. The mare’s 
hoof-prints showed deeper and deeper, and in two places 
where she had crossed her feet under the strain of a 
great fatigue. For speed she was renowned throughout 
the Peninsula, but in endurance the lowest hireling from 
the bazaar could beat her. 

And behind her ran the greyhound which had never 
been known to fail in a kill. 

He felt the stallion’s pace increase as he stroked the 
glossy neck; then, clutching the silvery mane, he swung, 
head down, listening to a sound which had come to him 
along the sand even above the pounding of the stallion’s 
hoofs. He swung himself erect and turned and looked 
along the path marked out by those who fled and those 
who pursued. 

Led by the Patriarch, the men of the Sanctuary, 
stretched out in a line across the horizon, raced towards 
him. They rode with the lance at rest, and shouted as 
they rode, until the heavens were filled with the sound 
of their voices and the thunder of their horses’ hoofs. 

There was no help to be sought of them. 

They rode in the joy of the hunt, in the hope of a kill, 
just as they had ridden to the attack upon the white 
man’s camp, led by the woman who had revolted them 
at last with her tyranny, and who, in the secret places 
of their inconstant hearts, they hoped would die rather 
than the white man and the white woman who fled before 
her. 

Then Fate jerked the strings which hobbled them all 
to their destiny. 

Al-Asad, riding with his eyes upon the greyhound, 
looked up and ahead when Yussuf’s challenging cry came 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


315 


to him on the wind. Breathlessly he watched for an in¬ 
stant of time, then sat back and raised his spear as the 
mare stumbled and flung Zarah to the ground. In an 
unconscious effort to catch the mare he pulled the stallion 
to the left, then pressed the beast hard with his right 
knee, bringing it back to the path, and touched its neck 
with the tip of the needle-pointed spear, so that it leaped 
forward under the unexpected goad and hurled itself on 
the track of the greyhound, which tore like the wind to 
where the girl stood. 

The half-caste just glanced at Yussuf and “His Eyes” 
as their dromedary suddenly left the path and sped away 
across the desert. He knew the dromedary was being 
driven along a circuitous route by which it would ulti¬ 
mately join up with the white people; he knew that 
Yussuf felt sure of his revenge and had left the end to the 
will of Allah; he felt no hatred in his heart as he looked 
after them, fleeing to the safety which was their birth¬ 
right ; he felt no anger as he raised his spear above his 
head, so that it glittered in the risen sun, and shouted 
the battle-cry as he drove the stallion to the rescue of the 
girl who stood alone, so far away, facing him and the 
greyhound who had never failed to kill. 

He turned for an instant to look at the men who fol¬ 
lowed hard upon his track, magnificent in his desperate 
need, his face alight with the glow of battle. He raised 
his spear in answer to the Patriarch, who raised his in 
salutation, and raised it again in greeting to the men, 
his friends. 

* *• * * 

“A day which is not thine do not rechon it as of thy life.” 

—Arabic Proverb. 

With the fatalism of the Arab, Zarah stood watching 
the race between the greyhound and the man who loved 
her. 


316 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


She had glanced at the black dromedary carrying Blind 
Yussuf and “His Eyes” to freedom;' she had looked at 
the magnificent sight of the men she had ruled so tyran¬ 
nically as they deployed so that they should encircle her 
when they reached her; she did no't turn to look in the 
direction taken by the girl she hated and the man she 
had loved passionately and for so brief a time. 

Yet did hate outweigh the danger of the hour. 

“By Allah,” she cried, lifting her spear, “if I live I 
will lead my men upon them and trample them and those 
who help them under foot. Yea, by the honour of the 
Arab I swear, if I throw the spear so that it pierces the 
heart of yon cursed dog, that not one of them shall be 
left alive within the hour.” 

She dropped her white cloak from her shoulders and 
stepped clear, weighing the slender spear as she measured 
the lessening distance between the stallion and the grey¬ 
hound. Her heart quickened not one beat, nor did the 
slightest shadow of fear show in the tawny eyes. She did 
not despair as the bitch seemed to gain upon the stallion; 
she did not hope as the thunder of the stallion’s hoofs 
sounded clearer and clearer every moment. 

She was alone in her hour of desperate need, and only 
upon the strength and skill of her right hand and the 
judgment of her eye could she depend for life if the Nubian 
failed to reach her in time. 

Yet even when that life trembled in the balance she 
could not refrain from tormenting the man who had been 
her willing, humble slave from the moment his eyes had 
first met hers, and who alone raced to help her in her peril. 

She held out her arms towards him and called his name 
and smiled, even though she could almost see the red 
gleam of hate in the greyhound’s eyes, so near was the 
revengeful beast. 

“Al-Asad!” she called. “Al-Asad !” 

Her voice sounded like a peal of bells in the desert 
stillness, her beauty flamed like the sky above, her courage 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 317 

was superb as she measured the distance between herself 
and the maddened greyhound. 

Then she leant forward and screamed, screamed till 
the echo of the terrible sound carried to Yussuf’s ears, so 
that he turned and looked back in the direction of the 
girl he could not see. 

Death was upon her; death with a crown of red above 
its snow-white face; the death Yussuf had prophesied 
when she had struck him blind. 

She ran back so that the white cloak stretched between; 
she looked round and up, up to the sun which was her 
birthright, forward to the closing of her day. She flung 
out her arms, her hands, fingers widespread as though 
to clutch the last moments of the life she loved so well. 
Life was nigh spent; she stood within the shadows of 
Eternity; but, true to her father’s race, true to the 
relentless desert to which she belonged, she would die 
fighting. 

She shouted the battle-cry as she raised her spear. 

“Ista ’ jil! Ista ’ jil! Ista ’jil!” 

The desperate, defiant words were carried across the 
sands as she flung the spear, flung it as Radi the bitch, 
increasing her speed in a last desperate effort to revenge 
her pup, changed her course by a few inches, so that the 
spear barely grazed the shoulder as it flew past and buried 
itself in the sands. 

Then fear came to Zarah the Cruel, not the fear of 
death, but fear of an ignominious end in the eyes of her 
men. 

“Kill me, Al-Asad ! Kill me!” 

She called desperately to the Nubian as she caught the 
bitch by the throat as she leapt upon her. 

“Kill me! Kill me! Kill me !” 

The terrible cry rang in the Nubian’s ears as, mis¬ 
judging his strength, he hurled the spear even as the 
greyhound leapt. 

He shouted with triumph as the greyhound fell back 


318 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


dead, then flung himself from the stallion as he swept 
past at full speed and threw himself upon the girl he loved 
as she lay still. 

The point of the spear which had killed the greyhound 
had buried itself in Zarah’s heart. 

He did not hear the shouting of the men as they swept 
down upon him from every side; he did not seem to see the 
sun in the heavens as he knelt and drew the weapon free; 
he did not hear the call of life as he lifted the girl and 
held her against his heart. 

“Zarah,” he whispered softly, holding her gently on his 
arm. “I love thee! No kiss have I wrested from thee 
awake. Behold, is it for me to snatch one from thee in 
sleep?” He turned her face to his shoulder and touched 
her hair gently, winding one curl about his slender fingers. 
“I love thee, mate of mine. I hunger for thee, I thirst 
for thee. Yea, by the wind of dawn I cannot live without 
thee. Behold, is there a smile lurking in the comer of 
thy mouth, and thine eyes, like unto clear w T ater winding 
across the sands, laugh at me between thy lashes. Thou 
art gone but a space before me across Life’s desert, and 
I hold the hem of thy garment in my hands so that thou 
canst not escape me. I hear thee calling me in the w r ind, 
I see thee beckoning me ’neath the sun.” He bent and 
kissed her hair, then looked up to the sun, to the heavens, 
to that which awaited him. 

He raised his spear above his head and smiled. 

The men, racing towards him in a great circle, raised 
their spears and shouted a salutation as they pulled their 
horses back upon their haunches. He shifted the girl 
a little upon his left arm, then threw back his head and 
shouted the battle-cry, shouted until the desert rang 
with the triumphant cry, as the men, divining his inten¬ 
tion, charged dow r n upon him. 

He shook the spear above his head and laughed. 

“Zarah! My woman! Zarah, I follow thee!” 

He shouted the w r ords, shouted with joy, then drove 
the spear deep down into Iris faithful heart. 


EPILOGUE 


The Holy Man, motionless, gaunt, his eyes filled with 
the peace of Allah, the one and only God, stood afar off, 
outlined against the blazing sky. 

He looked to the north, where had passed a party of 
Bedouins with a white man and a white woman in their 
midst—a w r hite woman with eyes like stars of happiness 
and hair like unto a golden flower. 

He looked to the east, w r here passed a body of men, 
driving their horses at greatest speed as they rode silently, 
swiftly, into the unknown, wuth the lance at rest. 

Leaderless they rode, a black line across the limitless, 
relentless desert, their spear points glittering in the sun. 

They faded into the distance, they were gone. 

To the south lay the Holy Man’s path, the south where 
the wind blows hottest, where the sands bum the sandal 
from off even holy feet, which search salvation in distress 
throughout the years. 

“And deliver them from evil” 

He leant upon his staff, older by some score years than 
when he stood to watch tw 7 o horsemen fleeing for their 
lives across the desert. The beads of Mecca slipped be¬ 
tween his fingers as he bent to read the inscription from 
the Koran which the Patriarch had roughly scratched 
wdth spear point upon the sand. 

He lifted up his voice in the wilderness above the spot 
where Zarah the Arabian, wrapped in her great white 
cloak, lay upon Al-Asad’s heart, asleep beneath the sands 
of the desert to which they both belonged: 

“For whomsoever thou shalt deliver from evil on that day 
on him wilt thou have mercy; and this will be great salvation.” 

319 


320 


ZARAH THE CRUEL 


The wind from the south carried the sonorous words 
from the Koran up to heaven as the Holy Man passed on, 
the one solitary figure moving in the relentless desert, the 
forcing-ground of hate and fear and revenge, the burial 
place of love and hope and peace, above which the birds 
of prey wheeled and called as they drifted to the north 
and the south, the east and the west, as they have drifted 
since the day every grain of sand was numbered. 

















































































